


Like Father, Like Daughter

by BeifongFirebender



Series: Hotshot [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Earthbending & Earthbenders, F/M, Gen, Injury, Metalbending & Metalbenders, Past Relationship(s), Police, Republic City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeifongFirebender/pseuds/BeifongFirebender
Summary: A  string of clues leads Officer Lin Beifong to a guy named Kanto
Relationships: Lin Beifong & Kanto, Lin Beifong & Katara, Lin Beifong & Suyin Beifong, Lin Beifong & Suyin Beifong & Toph Beifong, Lin Beifong & Toph Beifong, Lin Beifong/Tenzin, Suyin Beifong & Toph Beifong, Toph Beifong/Kanto
Series: Hotshot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848532
Comments: 46
Kudos: 77





	1. Leader of The Terra Triad

**_23 years after Lin’s born_ **

**_Day 0_ **

“Where’re you going, Lin?” the female firebender snickered.

Lin couldn’t hear her, however, her ears were still ringing from the explosion and her mind was in the earth listening for her partner’s heartbeat. She couldn’t sense anything, but that didn’t mean… She was never good at this, Jun could still be alive. She had to get to him… Had to check. Had to protect him. Crawling was too slow, she had to… Had to get up.

A kick to the stomach brought her back down. She coughed up blood.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about him.” The other firebender was now right above her. “Your cop buddy is done for.”

Lin gritted her teeth. “We’ll see about that.” She turned suddenly and sent some loose gravel flying right into that smug asshole’s face.

“Bitch!” It hit.

She used the time that earned her and her last bit of strength to crawl to her partner and finally check his pulse. It was there. Thank the Spirits, he was still alive!

“Jun. Jun, can you hear me?” Lin tried get him conscious, but he wasn’t cooperating.

It was an ambush. The two of them were responding to an anonymous tip and these two were waiting for them with explosives. Jun had been closer to it… She had to get him to a doctor and fast.

“Jun, get up. Snap out of—” She ducked in a hurry covering her friend’s body with hers as a stream of fire flew just above them.

“Time to say goodbye—” The woman stopped talking once a metal cable flew out of nowhere and wrapped around her arm.

“Republic City Police! On your knees!” In seconds a dozen officers flooded the alley. “Put your hands on your head and get down!”

“Hold on, Jun. We’re gonna be okay…” Lin sighed in relief.

**oooooooooo**

**_Day 1_ **

“I’m a grown woman, and you can’t keep me here against my will.” Lin’s gaze clarified she wasn’t referring to a legal inability, but rather a physical one.

The nurse, tired from explaining Lin’s injuries were severe and in need of monitoring, gave up, sighed and signed the release papers. Lin snatched them and left the hospital. In her mind it was all a big exaggeration. She hadn’t even been that close to the explosion. Her right hand was broken, that would be a problem, but the rest of her was fine. A couple of bruised ribs was nothing… She had worse injuries from training with her mother.

Tenzin waited for her in front with Oogi. They met in a careful hug.

“I’m not going home, you know.” She walked up to Oogi next, petting him, then set off in the opposite direction.

“Then where?” Tenzin followed, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She hated how he looked at her when she was hurt. Like she was made out of glass and not hardy Beifong stone.

“To the station. I’m a bit late, but it’s still morning and I can still help out.”

“Lin, no one expects you to bounce right back.”

“ _I_ expect me to bounce right back!” She should not have taken that tone with him, but her ribs were killing her, and she wasn’t even halfway to the station. “Jun’s in a comma right now, cause I’m shit backup, so I have to do something!”

“Did you at least sleep after I left?”

“I slept enough.”

Despite their differences, he walked her all the way to the station, no doubt hoping she’d change her mind. She didn’t. She waved and slipped into the building leaving him no time to make any more complaints.

Inside, she tried to pretend like everything was normal, and it almost worked, only her hand was all busted up and in a sling.

“What are you doing here, young lady?” she heard from behind her.

“Young lady?” She turned to see Officer Kun staring at her. He was one of her mother’s oldest cop friends and basically treated Lin like a daughter half the time, and a little sister for the other half.

“It’s the only way I know how to do authority, okay, _Officer Beifong_?” Kun had three teenage daughters at home who loved to refer to Toph and Lin as his _work family_ , but truth be told they were all one big work family here.

“Any chance you wanted to wish me a happy return to work?”

“There is no return to work… Your mother was very clear. She told me you’d come here first thing in the morning, and she instructed me to, and I quote, _tell Tenny-Linny she’ll be riding a desk for at least a month until she’s all patched up_.

“My mother said that?”

“Well, it doesn’t really sound like me much…” He shrugged.

“My mother?” Lin asked. “The woman who went into labor with me in the middle of a court hearing and then continued to give her statement and waited for the verdict to be delivered before going to the hospital? Her?”

“That was a special case.”

“The woman who went into labor with my sister and stopped a robbery while walking herself to the hospital? Really? Her? The woman who didn’t know she needed stiches on her face until she came home, and I told her? She’s gonna lecture me about taking it easy? Seriously?!”

“She’s not wrong, Linny. Would it kill you to take a break?”

“Is that firebender who attacked us still free?”

“Freedom is a rather philosophical concept, wouldn’t you agree…?”

“Kun!”

“They haven’t caught him… Yet. But there are good people on the case right now. You can find a comfortable chair, get a cup of coffee, huh? That sound good?”

Coffee did sound good. Actually, she was craving it. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get off her feet and think a bit. Do some good old boring paperwork… Then an image of her partner Jun flashed into her mind, him lying on a bed with not one, but two, waterbenders working on him.

“Who’s on the case?”

“Hong and Ru.”

“Them? Ru couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, and Hong would try to beat it for information.”

Kun chuckled, shaking his head. “Look, Lil’ Chief, I—”

“Can you all stop with the nicknames, already? I know I’m the boss’ daughter. Everyone knows.”

“Oh, come on, your ma calls me at least three things worse than that per day.” He received a glare that served as a clear answer. “You don’t even have a partner until Jun gets better.”

“You could be my partner.”

“You’re dreaming…” He shook his head again.

“Huang is on vacation so you’re flying solo, it’s perfect.”

“Listen, your ma will fuse me with a wall if I don’t enforce her orders.”

“And it’s your job…”

“Nah, I’m just scared.”

“Okay, what if I asked her first? Let me into her office, she’ll say yes to me.”

“She’s not here. Lunch.” He pointed in the general direction of the closest diner to the station. Miyuki’s. It was genuinely terrible, but they were close, served fast and had coffee so Lin ate almost exclusively there.

“And I can tell her if I go into the field, you’ll be there with me…?”

“Spirits, Lin… Fine. But she’s not gonna say yes.”

“We’ll see about that…”

There was no way Toph would hold out after Lin pointed out the hypocrisy, was there? She was always a big advocate for _not_ taking care of oneself. What was all this about all of a sudden?

Once Lin stepped into the diner, she didn’t even have to say a word, she just nodded to the waitress, who knew what to do. Coffee right this second, then the usual breakfast brought to the table. Of course, Lin had a favorite table there, by the window overlooking Main Street, but today she instead sat opposite her mother, who sat in the back, not being a big fan of windows.

“How bad is it?” Toph asked, probably having felt Lin coming all the way from the station. No one, not even her eldest daughter knew Toph’s true range of sensing. All she knew was that it was a lot bigger than hers ever hoped to be.

“Arm’s busted. Other than that, it’s nothing.” Lin sat down and almost gasped from the immense relief of her feet no longer burning with pain. It didn’t matter that she contained herself, her mother probably felt the slight change in her heartbeat.

“You talk to Kun?”

“Yeah, and you’re wrong. I’m okay going out into the field. I need you to lift your ban.”

“No.”

“You’re not even going to discuss it with me?”

“ _Discuss it_? Lin, I’m your fucking boss, I say burry yourself underground, you ask _How deep, boss?_ I don’t need to discuss shit with you if I don’t feel like it, and I will never feel like it.”

“You know what I think? I think you’re just using your position to ground me.” Lin quieted down once the waitress made her way to their table with a plate for Lin containing something vaguely omelet-like. She offered a smile back once the woman put the dish down, then waited for her to walk away before continuing. “It’s just a scratch and you have no right.”

“Scratch? Is that what your little friend thinks, huh? Jun something… How’s that kid? He wake up yet?”

“No.” Lin dug into her food, but not before dumping an unhealthy dose of salt on it. How dare she mention Jun right now?

“We’ll catch the poor son of a bitch sooner or later with or without you.” Toph was already done with her meal and reached out then to take a sip of Lin’s coffee. Honestly, how could Lin blame the others for teasing her when this was how her mother acted around her? If Lin objected to her coffee being taken, she sounded like a moody teenager, but if she let her have it, she looked like a good little Mommy’s girl. Neither was acceptable to her.

“I could help, I saw his face. You had worse than this happen to you, and you—”

“Linny, you keep ruining my morning and I swear I will send you home to recover.”

No, this… This was weird. Toph really didn’t want Lin to work on that case. And it wasn’t just for her safety because that was never a problem before. What was so different about this case?

“Why don’t you want me around this case? And don’t tell me it’s about me getting hurt…”

“What is it Katara always tells me? Oh, yes…. You’re not invincible. Take a break.”

Aunt Katara did say that. But something was off. Lin couldn’t truthsee like her mother, she always had to rely on good old police work and instincts, and right now, something just screamed her mother had an ulterior motive to keep her well away from all of this.

But then again, Lin had almost suffered a concussion just last night, maybe she was the one that was a bit off today.

“Please.” It was the last desperate attempt she’d make. “I need to do this. They hurt my partner.”

“I’ll tell you what, kid, you deal with this on your own and I’ll believe you can go back into the field.”

“Deal with what?”

There was a three second silence between them before the doors to the diner flew off their hinges towards the waitress, missing her by inches. The woman threw herself onto the ground immediately, letting all the plates she was carrying fall and shatter. Lin whirled to see two young men and a young woman carrying bags enter through the newly created hole where the door used to be.

“Get on your feet!” One of the men dragged the waitress up and started shoving her towards the register, holding a switchblade to her neck as she sobbed and mumbled something. “Be quick about it!”

Meanwhile the woman robber sat down on one of the tables, taking a muffin from an old woman’s hand and stuffing it into her mouth. “So good… Now, where were we?” She kicked off the table, landed on her feet and when she did the entire diner shook.

People were falling off chairs, mugs shattering left and right and the woman visibly reveled in it.

“Now that we all know what’s happening, I’ll need you to hand over your wallets and jewelry to my friend here.” She pointed to the other young man there, only to lock eyes with Lin. “Oh, shit.”

Spotted, Lin stood up, then with a swift hand movement bended a table into the woman. Those metal frames really came in handy. Lin dodged a rock sent at her by another robber, then returned the favor, hitting him right in the center of his forehead with a spoon and knocking him down.

Then unexpectedly Lin was thrown back when a chair flew into her. It was the woman, she was a metalbender too. It didn’t hit her broken arm directly, but it hurt like the damn thing broke again.

“You need any help?” Toph asked from the table as she sipped her coffee.

Lin ignored her and sent a cable flying in the general direction of the robbers hoping to catch at least one. She didn’t.

“Li, get over here!” the girl ordered and the man at the register let go of the waitress and with zero difficulty jumped over the counter and ran for the exit with the rest of his friends.

Lin followed into the street. Running was a whole different world of pain. She’d have to use her bending because she felt like she was a few steps from collapsing. The robbers took a turn into an alley and she followed, not really thinking about it. That’s when she tripped and fell forward onto the pavement. This time she was pretty sure she’d rebroken her arm. Wouldn’t Mom be proud if she could see her now?

One of those assholes had tripped her with a little earthbending column, it was such an easy trick, Lin used to do it in kindergarten. She couldn’t believe herself… Turning around, face smeared with dirt, she only saw one of them. The guy with the money stood in front of her, reaching for something in his pocket. She couldn’t feel it, so it wasn’t metal. Glass knife!

Lin was ready to fight back. A jerk of her healthy hand brought out her blade from her armor, and then…

“Are you stupid?!” The girl from before, the metalbender ran forth, and pulled back her friend. “You know who she is, he’ll fucking kill you!”

And with that they were gone further away from the city center and towards the Shades. However, in the time it took Lin to pick herself up again and limp back to the station, Toph had already captured the three thugs.

“I was just about to send people after you, Linny.” Toph added, as she was letting the arrested youngsters out of a car.

“She’s a metalbender, she should be in platinum.” Lin pointed to the girl who had sweat dripping down her face.

“Oh, I know. She’s been trying to fight me for control of her cuffs ever since I put them on.” Toph smirked. “It’s cute, she’s even worse than you are.”

The girl growled at that.

“Are they with a triad?” Lin asked, watching the girl struggle.

“The Terra Triad is down three dirtbags today.”

“Not! I’m a minor.” The girl cut in. “I’ll be right out of here Chief! So you can go fu—”

Toph moved her hand and the girl’s cuffs pulled her down to the concrete.

“Mom!” Lin objected. “You can’t do that.”

“I want her to remember this, since we’ll be right back here in a few years when I will be allowed to arrest her.” Toph released her hold on the cuffs and the girl got up, bringing her scraped knees into Lin’s view.

“You’re not supposed to say that…” Lin took out her platinum cuffs and walked to the girl. “I’ll change them if you let me. Okay?”

The girl looked away and Lin took that as a sigh to move forward. She bended off the regular metal cuffs and started putting on the platinum ones with great difficulty since she was working with only one arm. The other one hurt so much she was sure she’d need medical attention right after this.

“Who’ll kill you?” Lin whispered.

“What?”

“Back there. You said that someone will kill you if you hurt me.”

The girl grinned. “Oh, so, you are stupid… Tell me something, does you mother take care of everything for you? Or do you at least wipe your own ass?!”

“Enough!” Toph stopped it. “Inside.” She pointed and the girl started moving into the station after her two associates.

“How’d they get you?” Toph asked after they were handed off to the officers inside.

“Doesn’t matter. But it was weird… They had me for a second and then this girl stopped it, saying they’re not allowed to harm me.”

“Of course, they’re not. You’re my daughter.” Toph started walking away.

“Yeah, but… The Agni Kais didn’t seem to have that problem last night.”

“Guess, they’re stupid then.”

“She said, _He’ll kill you_. Who’s _he_?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Lin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, no mention of Kanto yet, but that will come. I’m not planning of making this too long… Just a bit of closure for people who’ve read the previous story, and honestly, for me too.
> 
> If you’ve enjoyed this and haven’t read “Who the F is Kanto?” yet, go, go, what are you waiting for?!


	2. The Chef

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a little refresher about the OCs in this. For people who’ve read a bunch of my stuff, it’s probably not necessary, but… Jun is Lin’s police partner who got injured in the opening scene last chapter. Kun is an older officer on the Force who’s known Toph since she was very young.
> 
> Only now that they’re in a story together did I realize their names where almost the same XD Sorry.

**_Day 4_ **

Lin was aware that Tenzin would be home soon, and that he’d want to find her resting in bed. Well, that was not going to happen, since she was in the middle of something at the moment. She wasn’t sure if she got any actual _resting_ done that day since there was so much to do around the apartment and then there was that stretching the doctor told her to do… When her boyfriend finally did come in, he found her at the kitchen table surrounded by papers, attempting to write with her left hand without much success.

“Lin…”

“What? I’m stretching my brain a little too.” She let go of the pencil and flexed the fingers in her left hand.

“I’m telling you, they’ll find the guy who attacked you and Jun. It’s just a matter of time.”

“They already did.”

“Then what are you doing while you’re supposed to be—”

“I’m fine. It’s been a week already…”

“It’s been two days!” He sat down opposite her. “I suppose I’ll tell my dad I won’t be coming around. Since I have to be here to watch you.”

“Do you _want_ to fight tonight? Because if you do, I’ll make time.” She looked away from the papers for a second to glare at him.

“Sorry…” He picked up a random photo from the table and immediately regretted it. It depicted a gruesome murder scene.

“They found the guy dead.”

“Oh, I see.” He returned the photo to her pile then, trying to touch it as little as possible like he could somehow get the blood on his hands.

“That’s why it’s not done. Someone, probably from a rival triad, tracked this guy down, then cut him to pieces while he was still conscious-”

“So you’re jeopardizing your recovery to get justice for the man who tried to kill you?” Tenzin asked. How could she make him understand?

“I’m not getting justice for anybody, I’m getting justice for _everybody_.” She took one of the particularly unpleasant photos and showed him. “You think the person who did this to another human being should walk around with the rest of us?”

Tenzin looked away. “No.”

For a second she thought she may’ve been a slight bit too harsh, but he found the strength to look back at her and the photo soon after.

“Is your mom close?” he asked then. “To finding the culprit, I mean.”

She let down the photo. “Not really. It’s weird.” She gathered all the papers into a folder, or rather tried to with her left hand. Then she gave up. “Kun dropped this off for me just to read, to be in the loop. But they’ve made barely any progress.”

“You could call him, compare notes.” He paused. “Just please don’t go into the field while things like this are happening.”

“Tez, precisely because things like this are happening, I feel bad for not being there. And this stuff… It’s like my mom doesn’t want to find the guy responsible.”

“I’m sure it just looks that way from the outside.”

“No, this… The guy that attacked me-”

“The dead guy?”

“Yeah, he was a member of the Agni Kais. Their biggest rivals are the Terra Triad, yet I see no attempt here to question any of the members. The investigative work on the Terra Triad is shabby in general…” Lin pulled a paper from the pile this time, handing it to Tenzin. “This is all we have on their leader.”

“That’s it?” Tenzin looked down at the almost completely empty paper she handed him.

“No name, no origin, just that he’s an older male, an earthbender and his people call him _the Chef_.”

“Well, that’s not very scary.”

“It’s not meant to be. The Terra Triad prefers mundane nicknames that have some sick twisted meaning only if you know the person.”

“What like… He boils people?”

“Or chops.”

“Wouldn’t that be a butcher?”

“I don’t know. It could be drug-related. People who make Scorching Ice are called cooks. Or chefs. Maybe he used to cook for the triad before he rose through the ranks… In any case, I don’t think the Chef did this. The triad bosses don’t really incriminate themselves like that unless it’s something personal.”

**oooooooooo**

**_Day 6_ **

“Would you like some dessert with that, sweetie?” Katara asked, taking Lin’s concentration away from her work. “We have some fruit pie from yesterday, or I could make you macaroons, you said you liked them last time…”

“No, Aunt Katara, thank you, but you don’t need to go to any trouble for me. Please just forget I’m even here.”

Lin was embarrassed enough as it is, since Tenzin refused to leave her alone unless she stayed with his mother on Air Temple Island. It was a good compromise, but it made her feel like a child. Well, the joke was on him, since Katara fussed a little, yes, but she let Lin work which was all that mattered. She’d even healed Lin’s arm a bit, bringing recovery and a return to field work that much closer.

“Don’t say that, Lin. You know how I love having any of you kids here with me.”

If she was honest with herself, Lin had to admit she thought her relationship with Katara would go south once Tenzin moved in with her. Tenzin was the family baby, the last one living home, but Katara handled it surprisingly well.

“And I love being here, but you’ve already done enough. Are you sure there isn’t anything I can help you with?”

Katara waved her question away immediately. “You know what, Linny, I’ll bring out the pie, and you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”

With that the woman disappeared into another room. Lin had already eaten soup, a salad, and some salty fish dish by that point, so she didn’t think she had it in her to continue, but it was hard to say no to Katara. She was just so happy when you ate her stuff.

In a few minutes she returned with about a quarter of a pie and… Could it be?

“Coffee?” Lin asked, then put out her healthy hand to take a cup.

Katara smiled as she watched her sip carefully with a look of absolute satisfaction on her face.

“Thank you,” Lin finally remembered to say.

“Of course, sweetie.” Katara sat down at the table new to her.

“And don’t you dare, I’m cleaning those dishes.” Lin gestured to the table covered with dirty plates and bowls as well as the case files she’d brought from home to work on. It was a mess and probably the biggest one she’d ever seen on Air Temple Island. Katara always kept the place spotless.

“I won’t fight you for it.” Katara smiled, then looked down at Lin’s papers with interest. Then her smile faded as soon as she saw something, but Lin couldn’t really figure out what. Maybe one of those awful photos. “So what is it you’re working on, sweetie?”

“I’m trying to find out the identity of the Terra Triad boss. But he’s good… It’s like he doesn’t exist. There’s next to nothing in the files.”

“Have you asked your mother? I’m sure she knows more than what’s in these…” Yeah, Katara really sounded upset, and distracted.

“I tried, but she didn’t really wanna talk about it. She got real mad at me.” That was weird too, come to think of it.

“You know what, Linny, I think I’ll check in with Tez and Aang now.” Katara stood up suddenly and started towards the radio room.

“Tell Tez I’ve been a good girl.” Lin tried to make a joke, but Katara just nodded and walked off as fast as she could. That was… somehow weirder.

But Lin went back to her suspects. She wouldn’t be stopped by a simple lack of information. She searched through years of Terra Triad files and finally narrowed it down to five men she thought could possibly be the Chef. They were all members of the triad who at one point of another mysteriously disappeared without the police ever finding out to where and why. Chances were four out of five of them were dead somewhere, their bodies hidden or ruined beyond recognition, but she hoped one of them was who she was looking for.

_Peizhi, Gen, Lowei, Yu-Jin or Kanto…_

**oooooooooo**

**_Day 7_ **

“Well, well, look what the cat owl dragged in!” The statement was followed by a bad sounding cough.

“Jun, you’re awake!” When Lin decided to pay her partner a visit in the hospital, she was fully prepared to talk to an unconscious person for ten minutes and call it a day, like she did every two days since the accident. “Did they tell you what happened?” She took a seat next to the bed while Jun fought off another coughing fit. Guess, his lungs took that blast much worse than hers.

“They didn’t say much, because stress is _bad for me_ and might _delay my recovery_ they said.” He used air quotes to make it clear where he stood on the issue. “Only thing I’m sure is that there was an explosion, and that you saved my ass.”

“Hardly.” Lin shook her head.

“Come on, Supercop, you seem to be doing a lot better than me.”

“You were way closer to it.”

“No matter. I’m sure you didn’t go all _lady swoon_ after it happened, like I did.” He was surprisingly chipper about the whole thing. Lin didn’t expect it, but she welcomed it after a week of everyone giving her their serious face all the time.

“No, I was thrown back. Broke some stuff. Failed to fight off the two guys that were trying to kill us, but backup arrived in time.”

“So should I start calling you _Detective_ now, or should we wait for the results?”

Oh, right… He didn’t know.

“I missed it.”

“What?”

“I missed the test.”

“How? I was in a coma, but you could’ve already been-”

“I rebroke my arm. I had to go back to the hospital.”

“What happened?” He sat up slowly.

“Some idiots decided to rob Miyuki’s. I had to defend the motherland…”

Jun chuckled as much as his lungs allowed him. “Did you get them?”

“The Chief did. I made an ass out of myself.”

“But you still could’ve made the test in time, right?” Jun asked. “You could’ve requested someone to write down things for you, because of the arm. We studied so long and hard for that and now, we’re 0 for 2.”

“That’s right. _We_ studied for it and _we_ will pass it. Next year.” It didn’t feel right to become a detective a whole year before Jun. That was the real reason Lin had skipped the exam. The two of them entered the academy together, graduated together and she’d be damned if they didn’t rise through the ranks together too.

They both dreamed of becoming Chief, but that was a problem for another day.

“Lin, that’s-”

“Oh, shut up. That’s just so that when I score higher you can’t say my year was easier.”

“Sure.” Jun laid back down. “So what did your mom say to you skipping the test?”

Lin grinned. “You make it sound like I’m ten. She… Didn’t care much. She didn’t say anything about it.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, it is. She’s being really weird overall. I feel like... I don’t know.”

“Weird how?”

“Like she wants me away from our case. She made me take vacation days.”

“That _is_ weird.” Jun rubbed his chin meaningfully. “It’s almost like… She… No, it couldn’t be... It’s almost like she’s your mother and wants your ungrateful ass to be safe.”

Lin shook her head. “You didn’t see her. It was weird.”

He sighed.

“Jun, can I ask you something?” It had been going in circles in her head and she couldn’t take it any longer. “Do you think criminals take it easy on me because I’m Toph’s daughter?”

Jun thought for a second, looking around, then locked eyes with her again.

“Sometimes, maybe.”

“It’s that noticeable?”

“It’s not something I think about when we’re out there. It’s not like I’d put you in danger on purpose because you’re the Chief’s daughter… Look at it like this, some of them will take it easy on you because they’re scared of your mother, but some of them will target you especially because they’ve got a grudge against your mother. It evens out.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, people will always find a reason. When we go out there together, some people will go for you rather than me just because you’re a woman, others will be reluctant to hurt you for the same reason… It’s just how it is. If you don’t think you’ve earned-”

“No, no… I’m fine. You’re making a lot of sense.”

And he was, like Jun often did. But something told Lin those triad kids had a deeper reason for not wanting to hurt her. _He’ll kill you_ , the woman had said, not _she_. Maybe their boss was scared of Toph. Whatever the reason, Lin wasn’t done thinking about it, it would seem.

**oooooooooo**

**_Day 14_ **

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” Kun sighed glaring sideways at Lin as they strolled the street bordering the Shades.

“I can.” Lin flexed her injured arm carefully. It was out of the cast, but it still wasn’t back to the way it was. “You folded like a piece of paper.”

“Can you even bend with it?”

“I’m a Beifong, I can bend by wiggling my nose.”

“Well, excuse me, Lil’ Chief… I just don’t want to find out what your mother would do to me if I let you get hurt.”

“Oh, please…”

“We’re almost done, anyway.” He couldn’t even say it without his eyes darting all over the place.

“Only because you made us take the _shortest_ possible route.”

“I’m not sorry I worry about you.”

“And you won’t be sorry, if someone gets stabbed in an alley today because you were preoccupied with babying me?”

He gulped. “Maybe we can circle back later.”

_That’s what I thought_ …

Lin had been waiting for the perfect moment since they left the station, but it looked like it wasn’t coming, so she decided to just go for it. It was the Beifong way, after all, and it often worked fine.

“Kun, you knew my mom before I was born, right? You worked for her since the start?”

“Almost. I joined as a teenager. It was a few years after the Force was founded, but I’ve known her for a damn long time. Why?”

“You have decades of experience, so I wanted to ask, in your opinion, what do you think the most successful triad in the city is?”

“It’s impossible to be objective about that. I’ve gone against some real pieces of work from each one of them, I’d be choosing on pure instinct…”

“That’s what I want. Which one would be in charge were it not for us? Which one are we furthest from putting an end to?”

“Where are these questions coming from, Lin?” Kun stopped and Lin moved a few steps to stand next to him.

“Nowhere. I’m just interested in a wider perspective than my five years on the force can give me.”

Kun studied her expression for a second, then continued forward.

“The Terra Triad. We… We’re kind of losing against them, or at least, it feels that way sometimes.”

After looking at what they had on their leader, Lin was inclined to agree.

“Any idea why that is?” she asked, eager to keep pushing the conversation in that direction.

“Not really.”

Lin did. She developed a working theory on why they didn’t have anything on the Chef yet, but she didn’t like it. If she was being honest with herself, she was looking for someone to dissuade her from it.

“Was it always like that?”

“Oh, no…” He smiled. “I remember this one great plan your mom came up with. We arrested over a hundred of those bastards, including all the people at the top. It was the greatest victory for the Force yet, and since. Those guys had half a mind to just pack up and leave, but then… Kanto happened.”

“Who?” That was one of the names on her list! Over the past week, she’d narrowed it down to two names, but now… She had actual confirmation.

“I think that was the name of the guy… I’m not sure. He took control, became the head of the triad and it’s been going smoothly for them ever since.”

“Then why isn’t his name in the triad file?”

“You checked? Lin, I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“How didn’t you notice that? It doesn’t say anything anywhere about him leading them.”

“I was transferred to Domestic Disputes after that. It really wasn’t my area anymore.” Kun stopped after hearing that aloud. His police intuition was probably screaming at him, just as Lin’s was at her. There was something wrong there. “But I reported it to your mom. It makes no sense… She’d have someone write it down…”

“Did anyone else know about it?”

“Of course, don’t be silly. Huang went with… me.”

“He was transferred right after that, too. Wasn’t he?”

Kun nodded. They were quiet for a few seconds as both of their brains went into overload trying to justify the actions of their chief.

“Is it just me, or did it just become super obvious my mom’s covering for this guy?” Lin voiced what they were both thinking, and he looked at her like she just cursed.

“No.” Kun turned from her. “No, no… Your mother hated that guy. She wanted to catch him more than anything. She’d always want to interview him personally, without anyone… around.”

Lin’s eyebrows jumped up at that.

“No, no…” He added, seeing her reaction. “It’s not like that, she hated him.”

“Oh, come on, he only got to power because of that mission she came up with. It cannot get any more obvious than that!”

“Lin, please realize what you’re talking about… It’s Toph Beifong, she founded the police force. Do you really believe she’s crooked?”

“I’m a police officer, I believe in evidence, and in this case it’s overwhelmingly against her.” Would Lin really turn her own mother in? And more pressingly, who would she even turn her over to? Here, Toph was the law. In most of the city, anyway. In the Shades, the bad part of the city, it was the Chef, it would seem. But as her and Kun put their knowledge together it looked more and more like Toph and the Chef were the law everywhere, together.

“I don’t know, Lin…”

“I have only one question left. What do you wanna do about it?”

Kun actually moaned as he allowed himself to consider betraying Toph as an option. Lin knew it hurt. It hurt her too, but they served justice, not her mother.

“I guess, we confront her. We tell her everything we have so far, and we ask if she has an explanation. Which she probably does.”

“No, Kun. There is no explanation for this… We need to tell someone else, like the Avatar, or someone who can fire her.” Lin couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.

“Hey, slow down! Everyone’s innocent till proven guilty. Plus, I don’t think your mother has it in her to do something like that.” He paused. “She probably just keeps that information in her head. That’s why she forgot to tell someone to add it to the files. That’s probably it.”

“Don’t make excuses for her!” Lin stopped them. “She has Kanto and the Terra Triad’s leader filed as two different people and that is no mistake. As for her not being capable of something like that… Well, you remember what happened when I arrested my sister.”

“Now, that… That’s not the same thing.”

“That report was never seen again, she buried it, just like she buried who really leads the Terra Triad!” Lin had no idea where all that animosity for her mother came all of a sudden, but she had trouble reining it back in.

Kun sighed again, sadly this time. “What do you wanna do then, Linny? You want to arrest your mother with no proof?”

“We’ll have proof.” Lin came closer to him, and lowered her voice. “We’ll go talk to Kanto.”

“What? No, Lin. No.”

“It’s perfect. You know what he looks like. You can make sure it’s really him. And I’ll tell him my mother told me about their deal and wants me to be in on it too.”

“That’s a terrible plan.”

“It’s perfect. He’ll buy it.”

“I don’t know…”

Lin didn’t hesitate, she just crossed the street to the Shades. She was done obsessing over this, today she’d get some answers.

Kun followed. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going. I’d like you to go with me, but you don’t have to. I can handle this.”

He grabbed her healthy hand to hold her back. “Please, Lin. I admit, your theory sounds scarily plausible, but this is not the way to prove it.”

“I’m going.” She pulled her arm free, then started walking towards the heart of the worst part of Republic City. She thought she’d be more scared than she was. Policemen didn’t come back from the Shades, not in one piece at least.

In just a few seconds, Kun was back at her side.

“What? You thought I’d let you go alone?”

“I was beginning to worry.”

“I’m more scared of your mother’s reaction to that, than everyone here.”

“Wise.”

“Don’t you think we should at least take off our badges?”

“No. Today we wear them proudly.” Lin smiled back at him, not knowing they were about ten seconds from being attacked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, things are coming together, at least it looks that way to Lin. We only saw two scenes of young Lin as a cop, and I went off from that, kind of assuming she was a very “by the book” cop at the beginning. Then after working there for a while she could’ve embraced the “I’m gonna do this my way, outside the law” way of doing things.


	3. Her Father

**_Day 14_ **

The people that jumped Lin and Kun in the middle of the street at broad daylight were clearly professionals of their _craft_. Lin didn’t even feel them coming until one of them wacked her across the head with what she could only assume was a wooden bat. Kun got the worst of the beating, since as soon as the criminals got a good look at Lin’s face, they stopped cold.

It was just as she suspected, they weren’t allowed to hurt her. Not Toph’s daughter, no.

She suddenly regretted bringing Kun along, seeing as she was mostly unharmed, while he had to be dragged up the stairs as the men and women led them to their boss. The thugs would’ve just thrown them across the border to the Shades if Lin hadn’t intervened, those were probably their instructions, and there was only so much resistance they could put up while not being allowed to hurt her in any way.

On the journey to the Chef she finally realized how their boss got his nickname. It wasn’t a morbid joke like she’d previously assumed, his headquarters were in a restaurant. He probably was a chef in his spare time. And if she wasn’t sure then, she was when her and Kun were shoved into the restaurant’s kitchen for the meeting.

There was a single man there, waiting for them. Well, not waiting… He was turned away from them and the door, chopping something at the kitchen counter. There was no chef’s hat, no apron, like she had expected. The man was dressed like he had a very serious business meeting after this: grey suit, except for the jacket that rested, neatly folded over a dinning chair. Despite all the chopping going on, his white shirt was spotless.

“They’re here, Boss.” One of the men holding Kun up spoke. The policeman then shifted, trying to stand on his own without help, but failed.

“I can both hear and sense that.” The Chef didn’t turn. “I’ll be with you in a second.” He checked his very expensive-looking watch, then transferred the vegetables he’d been chopping into a pot with one swift motion. Next, he started stirring, brining Lin’s attention to the purple flower tattooed on his forearm made visible by his rolled-up sleeves. Could this man be Kanto? Even without seeing his face she was sure she’d never seen him in her life.

“It smells great, Boss.” A man approached the dining table, ogling all the finished dishes already on it.

“It smells wrong.” Finally, the Terra Triad leader turned around. “Your idiotics made me overcook the potatoes. I had to start over. Now, you find some good taste while you’re on night patrol tonight.”

“For not smelling the difference?” It was obvious the man was displeased, but in a very polite and careful way.

“For ass-kissing.”

The man nodded, resigning. “As you say, Boss.”

“And take that swill with you when you leave.”

The henchman obeyed and left the room with the food and only then did the Chef look to Lin, if only briefly.

“Everyone knows who you are.” Then he moved his gaze to Kun who was wheezing as two men struggled to hold him up. “But who are _you_? What’s your name, officer?”

Kun managed something resembling his name. Lin wondered if he recognized the Chef. She wanted to ask, but it almost didn’t matter now. They were here, there was no going back. The triad leader certainly looked old enough. His brown hair had the occasional bit of gray.

“What are you doing so far into my territory?” _Kanto_ asked. Or at least she thought that’s who he was.

Kun looked like he was trying hard to give his response, but then instead of words he spit blood in the Chef’s direction. Luckily for him, he didn’t hit his target and it made Kanto amused instead of angry.

“Don’t!” Lin yelled at the triad boss. “He came here because of me. I wanted to talk to you, he didn’t. He only came to protect me.”

“That true?”

“I wasn’t gonna… Let her… Go alone… With you monsters.” Kun somehow found the strength to stand on his two feet after saying that. He was still breathing heavily, but the glare he was giving the Chef showed he felt better.

Kanto smirked, like he just heard some joke no one else understood but him. “You’re a good man.”

Lin wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“The world doesn’t care about that. But I do.” The Chef added, then turned to his goons. “You will take him to the border to the Shades and _no_ more harm will come to him. Understood?”

The criminals all nodded in unison.

“No!” Kun screamed once they took hold of him again. “I’m not leaving Lin here with you!”

One of the thugs was getting ready to plant his fist in Kun’s gut when Kanto put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

“You do know what _no more harm_ means, don’t you, Ping?”

“Yes, Boss.” He lowered his hand.

“Which reminds me… I noticed blood on young officer Beifong’s lip. Who’s responsible?” He looked around at his people one by one. The guilty man didn’t even have to confess, everyone was looking at him. It was the one Kanto called Ping before.

“Boss… I… It was before I recognized her, I would’ve never… I stopped immediately after—”

“Oh, you stopped?” Kanto took a step towards Ping and the two men standing to his sides moved away, knowing what’s coming. “Why didn’t you stay so?” The first punch was unexpectedly quick for such an old man and it knocked Ping, who wasn’t small, out cold. But Kanto got down on the floor on top of him and kept punching with such ferocity, there was no doubt in Lin’s mind the man would be dead soon if she did nothing.

“Stop!” She got away from the men holding her only long enough to shove Kanto a little bit, but it seemed to be enough to snap him out of the state he was in.

After that, Kanto got up, purposely not looking at Lin directly, then walked to the sink to wash blood from his hands. His shirt wasn’t perfectly white anymore, either.

“Leave us, everyone,” he ordered next.

“But, Boss, she’ll—” One of the men holding Lin protested.

“Her arm’s recently broken, and she’s surrounded. It would be downright stupid to resist. We’ll be fine.”

Kun still struggled as he was being dragged out the room, but Lin was more worried about him than she was about herself. Part of a police officer’s job, really. No situation she ever found herself in scared her more than the people she cared about being away from her where she couldn’t help them.

She noticed Kanto still wasn’t looking at her, even thought they were all alone in the room. He swaggered to the dining table and sat down. Then he gestured to a chair opposite him.

“I don’t believe you’re really letting him go,” she said.

“Is that so?” He paused. “Sit down. You said you wanted to talk to me. So, talk.”

“Is your name Kanto?” She didn’t move.

“You aren’t supposed to know that.” He stretched, reached into the jacket of his suit and took out a pack of cigarettes. “How _do_ you know that?”

“I did some digging in the police records. My mother didn’t do that good a job hiding your identity.”

“You mind?” He asked, but didn’t wait to light his cigarette.

“No more than seeing a man beaten half to death in front of me.”

“We have one very important rule around here. He broke it.” Kanto took a puff and only then, did he look her directly in the eyes, with an intensity that seemed somehow out of place.

“Sit down,” he continued, “you can hate me and have something to eat at the same time.”

Lin glared, but sat down and he shoved a plate of food her way. Then he got up to stir the pot on the stove.

“If you throw that knife, I’ll just bend it away, and you’ll have to eat with your fingers,” he said with his back turned, then continued stirring without touching the metal spoon to prove his point. Lin let the knife clang back down to the table. Who did this man think he is?

“So what did you want to talk to Kanto about?” He turned off the stove, then made his way back to the table to sit down.

“I know my mother works for you,” Lin tried to say as emotionlessly as she could. She wasn’t prepared for the laughter that followed.

“That… That’s a good one. Toph working for someone…” Kanto continued grinning in her direction like she’d made a joke.

“I meant, working together with you...”

“Where’d you get that nonsense?”

“From my mother.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did!”

“No…” Kanto shook his head with slight amusement. “You didn’t.”

“Well, it’s the only explanation for the irregularities with the records.”

“No, it’s not.” He looked down at her plate. “Food’s getting cold.”

“I’m not hungry.” She shoved it away.

“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s not polite to refuse food after your host has been slaving away in the kitchen for hours?”

“My mom’s not big on manners.” Lin pulled the plate back towards her. “But I’ll eat if you’ll tell me what business you have with my mother.”

Kanto nodded and Lin took a bite of the weird smelling pasta. It was… unexpectedly tasty. Lin tried to play it off like she was unaffected, but it didn’t work because the second bite was somehow even better.

“Good?” he asked.

“I think you can quit your night job and do this for a living…”

He smiled at her, surprisingly warmly and then sighed. “Your mother never worked for me, I worked for her. Once.”

“You were an officer?”

“Better. But we’ve since gone our separate ways.”

“So my mother’s not breaking any laws for you?” Lin asked, then stuffed more pasta into her mouth.

“It’s… complicated. The answer to that.”

“There’s nothing complicated about it. She knows what’s allowed and what’s not, if she did something—”

“I’m really not supposed to say anything to you. She’ll probably kill me, just for this.”

“I’ll take that to mean, she _is_ doing something illegal. No one needs covering up of something that’s allowed.” Lin took a last bite of her food, then stood up.

“No, wait. I… I’ll tell you, just. Please.”

She sat down, a bit unsettled by his reaction. “I’m listening.” This felt like he was trying to keep her there on purpose. Like he had to get her away from somewhere. Or like he was waiting for something here.

“We worked together a long time ago, your ma and I, and were very close then. The reason we’re still in contact sometimes is because we’re both still interested in something we started together back then.”

“Like a project?”

“Something like that. Something we started 23 years and 7 months ago.”

Lin immediately found the sentence odd, but in a moment realized that was her exact age.

“No! No, you don’t get to do this!” Lin stood up so forcefully, she knocked down her chair. “Motherfucker! Just because everyone from Capital City to Ba Sing Se knows I don’t have a father, that does not mean I’ll fall for—”

“You do have a father. I was always here, I just—”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Lin was furious, yet some things begun connecting in her mind. It made sense now, why no one in his triad was willing to hurt her. It made sense her mother wanted to hide any connection she had to this man. It just… made sense.

“Lin, I’ll explain it, if you’d just let me.”

“No! I’m not a truthseer and you can’t prove it, so there’s no reason for me to trust a word out of your mouth! So you found out from somewhere how old I am. Big deal… It means nothing!”

“Why would I lie about that?”

“To distract me, of course. I’m clearly onto you somehow and—”

“Toph will confirm it when she gets here. I sent for her.” Kanto set her chair right side up. “Now please sit and let me start explaining. It’s a long story.”

“No.” A part of her just wanted to turn around and start running in the opposite direction.

“But the most important thing for you to take out of it is… that I didn’t abandon you.”

Lin spent a good portion of her life dreaming of finding her dad. Wishing that one day he’d come back and say something exactly like this here man was saying.

Only in her dreams, her father wasn’t a coldblooded murderer.

“I don’t believe you. My mother is a lot of things… But she would never, _ever_ get involved with a criminal.”

Seeing Lin wasn’t calming down, he sat back into his chair and sighed once more. “I wasn’t just a criminal then. I was an informant.”

This got Lin’s attention.

“I was in the triad, but I was a snitch. Me and Toph worked in secret to bring the then-boss to justice. And sometimes we did… other things in secret too.”

“That’s what Kun was talking about. He said half the triad was arrested.” Lin suddenly realized. She also figured Kun was actually safe and free by then, since Kanto wouldn’t harm the man whose only crime was trying to keep his daughter safe.

“Yes. It was a good plan your mother and I came up with. So what do you say, Lin? Do you trust me now, or should I describe how your mobile looked like? Or what row you sat in back in first grade? Or what color your dress was at graduation?”

“I get it. Enough.” She let the silence stretch out after that sentence, then sat back down onto her chair. “But those are just facts that you could—”

“Look, I’m your father. You may not like it, but it is true…” He sighed, somewhat sadly, pulled a photo from somewhere in his jacket and slid it across the table towards her. Guess, he was expecting her to doubt him.

The photo wasn’t exactly proof. She picked it up to examine it. It showed young Lin, at maybe, eight years old tops, grinning at the camera with a few teeth missing. Yet Lin remembered when it was taken. Her mother had taken her to a photographer, which was odd since her mother wasn’t a big fan of photos for obvious reasons… Then, Toph had let her choose one photo, the one she liked best and Lin had never wondered, not till now at least, where it had gone. Turned out it went to her father…

Lin looked up from the photo and saw the man in front of her with new clarity. He was the right age. His stories all fit. His hair, although the wrong color, was wavy like hers, like her mother’s never was. A lot of his face features… It was all right there…

Her father was a triad boss…

_Fuck._

“If you have any questions, I’d love to answer them.”

“Do I have any siblings? I mean, besides Suyin.” There weren’t any children in the files she read, on both Kanto and the Chef, but if this day proved anything, it was that those files meant nothing.

“No.”

“And Su’s not…?”

“Spirits, no. You’re my only child, Lin.”

That was… comforting. The last thing she needed was to find out someone she threw in prison a week ago was her half-sibling.

“Have you always known? That I was your… You know.”

“Toph didn’t tell me right away. At the time that I pieced it together, you were about one. Your mother and I had already split up over creative differences by that point.”

“Creative differences meaning you wanted to keep your life of crime, but she refused to date a criminal?”

“Pretty close.” Kanto smiled bitterly. “But you have to believe me, I had no idea about you, not one clue. If I had, I would’ve never left your mother. I would’ve never become this, I–”

Lin huffed dismissively and looked away. The eye contact was becoming a little too much. She was in no way prepared for this when she came looking for this man. How could she have been?

“I’m serious,” Kanto continued. “I would’ve stayed and been your father. I loved Toph, it wouldn’t have been hard. Spirits, it would’ve probably been a better life for me than what I have now. But I made a stupid, misguided decision without knowing all the facts and I fucked it all up. For both of us.”

“Then why didn’t you come back?”

“I couldn’t.”

“You said I was one.” Lin looked back up at her father with tears brimming her eyes. “If you’d come back, I wouldn’t even remember you’d ever left.”

“I was already leading the triad by that point. If I was coming back, I was coming back to prison. You think your mother would’ve taken you to see me there? Not to mention it was dangerous for her, she could’ve lost her job over fraternizing with me and I didn’t want that.”

“Big deal… She should’ve thought about that before.” Lin wiped a tear escaping one of her eyes and it sent tears streaming down from the other one. It made her feel like a child to cry in front of an adult stranger, but she couldn’t help it. “That job took my mother away from me for most of my childhood and now you’re telling me it also took away my…?” She didn’t finish. She had to calm down…

“I also didn’t want you to be a part of this world, Lin. Being my daughter, you would’ve been a target your whole childhood, even more so than just being the Chief’s daughter. You’re the one good thing I did, the one good thing I have left… I couldn’t put you in danger. Look what happened with the Agni Kais recently…”

“That was—”

“They knew. I have history with them, their mother, to be specific, and they found out. They almost killed you.”

“You did it.” Lin stood up in shock again. “Oh, it’s so obvious now, why haven’t I seen it before? You killed the one we didn’t arrest. And you didn’t just kill him, you butchered him!”

“He tried to kill my daughter! Was I supposed to just wait for him to try again?!”

At that moment, the earth started shaking. They both knew what that meant.

Toph was coming. And she was angry.

“Oh, joy…” Kanto put out his cigarette. “She’s in a mood. It was nice meeting you, Lin, but this is probably how I die.”

Lin was about to argue, but then she heard screams from outside the door.

“You’ll have to wait your turn if you want—” They heard a man’s voice from the hallway, then a loud thump.

“I’ll have to give him a raise if I survive this,” Kanto said, just before the doors to the kitchen flew from their hinges.

Toph was on the other side, but she didn’t take even one step inside the room. Instead she whistled and gestured to the hallway with her head.

“Get a move on, Linny! We’re leaving!”

“No, Mom, I want to—”

“ _Leaving_!”

“No! I’m not moving until you tell me if the things he’s been telling me are true!”

“He’s a criminal. You can’t trust a word out of his mouth. Now let’s go!”

It should’ve made Lin relieved to hear that, but deep inside she knew Kanto was telling the truth. Her father was telling the truth. Her mother was the liar. If she wasn’t already sure of it, the way he looked at her mother would’ve told her everything she needed to know.

Seeing how conflicted Lin was, Toph stepped inside, probably with the intention of physically dragging her daughter out.

Then Kanto bended the hole in the wall where the door used to be closed.

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Toph snapped at him.

“She’s not a kid anymore, Toph. She has a right to know. So I told her everything.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Toph.”

“We had a deal, Kanto! There was no expiration date on that!”

“So it’s true?” Lin cut in. “Everything he told me? He’s my father?!”

Toph crossed her hands and said nothing.

“Mom?” Lin asked again.

“Yeah, he is,” Toph said it like she was mad at the words.

Kanto was probably expecting some sort of recognition after that, but Lin was overcome with fury so quickly, she forgot he was even there.

“I cannot believe you’d do that to me!” Lin screamed at her mother.

“Tell me, Linny, what exactly did I do to _you_?!”

“Well, let’s see! First of all, I had to grow up without a dad, not only that, but whenever I asked you about him you—”

“Oh, give me a break already!”

“Am I wrong?”

“You’re dramatic! You were a little kid, how was I supposed to explain—”

“Let’s move on from that… After today, I _know_ you broke the law and now I have to lie and cover for you, like with Su! I cannot believe you did that to me again! I can’t believe I let you!”

“And who’s fault is it that you found out?!”

“It’s your fault there is something to find out!”

“Girls, girls… Can I just say—” Kanto tried to cut in.

“Shut up!” Both Toph and Lin snapped at him in unison.

“And on top of it all…” Lin begun again. “I have to keep going, knowing that my father, someone I’ve spent my whole life wanting to meet, is a killer!”

“Wake up, Linny! Everyone that was in the war is a killer too! That means Su’s dad, and me. Even your precious Uncle Aang…”

Lin was quiet for a second there, and it allowed Kanto to finally get a word in.

“Some of us are like that, so that our kids don’t have to be.”

Lin ignored him completely, instead turning back to her mother.

“I can’t believe I’ll have to go back to work knowing all of this… How could I ever be impartial after— I can’t believe you did this to me! I can’t believe I now have to suffer because you whored around with a triad—” Lin was interrupted by a slap from her mother. Before she even bounced back Kanto stood in front of her, between the two of them.

“That’s enough, Toph,” he said.

“So I should just let he talk to me like that? I’m just teaching her… You talk to people like that, Lin, you better be prepared to throw hands.”

Lin just held on to her cheek and stared at her mother with tears draining from her eyes. It didn’t really hurt that much, but the embarrassment of it all was a bit much after the day she’d had.

“Are you listening to yourself, Toph?” Kanto didn’t move, he was still blocking Toph’s way to Lin. “You can’t hit your child. Or at least, you can’t hit _my_ child.”

“Oh, a lesson from the father of the century! What a fucking honor!”

“It’s time for you to leave, Chief.” He took a step closer to her.

“I’m trembling…” she mocked.

“I’m serious.”

“I bet you are… But this is my city. I go where I want, whenever I want.”

“That might be mostly true, but we’re in the Shades. They belong to the thieves, swindlers and gangsters of this city, to the lowlifes, which makes them _mine_.”

Toph grinned at that. “You’re lucky I’m above killing you in front of our daughter, Hotshot.” Then she turned and walked to the place where the doors used to be. “If she’s not back on our side by sundown, I’ll be back here. And this whole operation’s going down, off the books.”

Then Toph bended a hole in the wall to pass through and left the two of them alone again.

“I’m sorry, for that…” Kanto finally turned back to Lin after a few moments. “Are you okay?”

It took her longer than expected to come up with an answer because she suspected it’d be at least a month until she could be sure either way.

“Fuck this… I’m leaving.” She walked past him. He followed.

“Come on… Let’s just sit down, have dinner and talk for a little while longer.”

“No, you… You might have been at my graduation and in my nursery, but I didn’t know that. You did it for yourself, not for me.”

“Lin, that’s hardly fair—”

“You know what’s not fair?! Sokka had to take me to the father-daughter dance, and Bumi taught me how to drive and Uncle Aang was always there to defend me against Mom. You did nothing! And when I get married, I’ll make sure you can’t even get near! Because I don’t need you _now_!”

And in the silence that followed that, Lin left the restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we finally got to the “meeting”. I wanted all three of them, Lin and her parents in a room together even for a little while, even though there was no way that wouldn’t end in yelling and earthbending.
> 
> I tried to get the reactions right, I know I made Lin really angry, but that is quite the curveball to throw at someone at any age. I also think it’s believable to assume Toph and Kanto’s relationship would get bitter with time.
> 
> Anyway, next chapter is the aftermath…


	4. Next on Her List

**_Day 14_ **

“Mom?” Lin let herself into the house, even though, she technically no longer lived there. She didn’t like thinking about it like that. Su was, for better or worse, moved out too, so their mother now had the entire house to herself. “Are you here? Mom?”

“Your sensing’s not that bad!” Lin heard from her mother’s room while walking up the stairs.

“Mom?” She peeked into the bedroom and found Toph lying down on the bed with her back to the door. “You okay?”

“Never been better.” That led to a still and silent moment that Toph murdered without remorse. “You have a reason for coming here, or?”

“Yeah, I…” Lin looked around the room, trying to figure out if her mother wanted to talk or not, but it was hard with the woman’s face turned away from her. “Forget it… It’s…”

Toph shifted slightly then, moving from the middle of the bed to one side, freeing room for Lin to lie down next to her. It used to be the only way they could have an honest conversation in this house. Lin, Toph and Su all lying on the bed next to each other, staring at the celling.

Lin carefully made her way to the bed and laid down onto her back, expecting her mother to shoo her away any second. But she didn’t.

“Yeah, so… Mom…” Lin took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for all the shit I said back there. I… You didn’t deserve it.”

Nothing. Not a word from Toph.

“What? You aren’t gonna say you forgive me?” Nothing. “It’s been a hard day for me, alright? I may have been a bit upset when I said what I said. I understa—”

“I shouldn’t’ve smacked you,” Toph finally spoke. “Next time I do that, you smack me right back.”

“I’m not going to hit you, Mom…”

_No one should ever have to say that_.

“Could’ve been worse,” Lin continued, “one of the officers could’ve seen it all play out.”

“Yeah.”

“I checked before coming, Kun’s in the hospital, he’ll be okay.”

“I called too.”

And that was it. That was all Lin could think to say.

Yet she didn’t feel like leaving. She wanted to stay with her Mom now, however childish it sounded. She’d just found out something big about herself and she needed this familiar setting to cope. So she stayed in complete silence. Toph didn’t seem to mind either.

Lin wasn’t sure how long had passed before her mom broke the silence.

“I’ve been thinking, Linny…” Toph turned so she was facing her daughter. “And if you want to keep talking to Kanto, that’s okay with me.”

“What?”

“I mean, I won’t make a scene about it ever again. And he’d rather cut off his arm, than see you hurt, so there’s no real danger involved. If it’ll make you happy, go for it.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would I want that?”

“ _Why_?! This from the girl who whined for her daddy for years…”

“I was a kid, I don’t need a father _now_.”

“Well, you have one now. Whatever you end up doing about it, just keep me well out of it… And maybe don’t advertise it at work.”

“Even if I wanted to spend time with him, the fact remains, he killed that guy who attacked me and Jun. Butchered him in cold blood… Did you know that?”

Toph turned to face the celling. “I didn’t exactly _know_. I strongly suspected it. That’s what Kanto does.”

“Why would I wanna talk to a man like that anymore than I have to?”

“It’s not… Lin, Kanto, he believes in justice, just like you and me. Only his is a little different. It’s the way he grew up, he…” Toph stopped herself before elaborating on that. “You’ve worked with me for some time now, you know no matter how much we try, sometimes it’s out of our hands. Well, in Kanto’s eyes, he’s all that’s left when the police fail. I’m not claiming he’s right to do the things he—”

“He’s not. That’s not an excuse. There never was a criminal who didn’t see himself as—”

“I know, but I also know him.” Toph turned her head to face her daughter again. “In his eyes, he was saving his daughter. I can’t really fault him for that… He’s a piece of work, but he’d do anything for the people he cares about. It’s the man’s best quality…”

A moment of silence.

“You knew him that well?” Lin found herself asking. Kanto did tell her it was more than a one-off fling, but she spoke about him, like…

Lin knew this one of her mother’s moods. Momentary complete sincerity that once over became lifelong silence. If Lin wanted to know something it had to be asked now, because once her mother said she was done discussing something, she was really _done_.

Toph remained still as a statue for a few moments before a smile broke through, a sad smile. “Of course, I know him. There was a time I loved him so much that if he’d asked me to marry him, I would’ve said _yes_.”

Lin was almost shocked into silence after hearing _that_.

“But when Sokka asked you, you said—”

“I know what I said… I was younger with Kanto, he was the first man I ever fell for.” Toph turned back to the celling. “I wasn’t completely opposed to the whole marriage nonsense back then.”

“But when you met Sokka, you were like… What, twelve?”

“It was just a crush back then. You got lucky with Tenzin, you wouldn’t know… You can only love someone so much, if they don’t feel the same way. When they do love you back, that’s when the real stuff begins.”

“And he… I mean, Kanto, he also felt—”

“If you asked that fool, he’d probably say he still loves me… But yes, he did. He was good and ready to leave that horrible life of his behind, but then his brother, your uncle, was killed. And instead of dealing with it in here,” Toph touched a finger to her forehead. “He’s dealing with it out there,” She pointed out the window. “One criminal at a time, playing cop, judge and executioner… No way I was having any of that shit anywhere near my kid. _No fucking way_ …”

Lin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not the stuff about her father, she was still processing the fact she had one now, apparently. Just how sad her mother sounded about all of it. If Lin didn’t know better, she’d say she heard regret in her mother’s voice.

They were lying in bed together, and that was always their _sharing place_. It was where they could talk about boys, bullies and the only place in the world where her mother would say she loved her daughters, unprompted. But never this. They could never before talk like this.

“You okay, kiddo?” Toph interrupted her thoughts.

“Yeah, I just… Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Lin couldn’t help but sound accusatory. “I must’ve asked a thousand times over the years. I would’ve understood, at least for the past few years, but instead of this, you told me to shut up, or that I didn’t have a dad, or that it’s none of my business.”

“You want to hear that I’m a bad mom, is that it?”

“No, Mom, I-”

“Don’t you think I know what a crappy mom I am? I know…” Toph turned her whole body to face Lin. “I know I should’ve talked to you about it. I just didn’t know how to tell you…”

“That my dad’s a triad boss?”

“And a good man. Once, before he lost his way.” Toph got a bit distracted after saying that, then continued, her voice cracking. “I didn’t want you to know how much he’d hurt me, when he chose what he thought was justice over me. Over the life we could’ve had together.”

“And over me.”

“No, he didn’t know.” Toph reached out and Lin moved to help her mother find her cheek. “He would’ve stayed for you. You remember that apartment we lived in before Su?”

“Barely.”

“I bought it for me and Kanto. All three of us would’ve lived there. That was the plan. He’d work in that restaurant we had across the street. Cook for us. Walk you to school every morning. Tuck you in if I couldn’t be home in time.”

“Good plan.”

“You deserved all of it, baby, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it happen for you.” Another voice crack. Lin’s mother didn’t cry… She was an immoveable mountain. Solid rock.

“Mom, you—” Lin quieted down when her mother pulled her into a bone-crushing embrace. She wanted to say her childhood was perfect. She wanted to say she wouldn’t change it for anything else in the world. And more than anything, she wanted to tell the woman who’d raised her, all on her own, that she loved her.

No words were coming out. Toph stroked her hair gently, while still holding on to her like someone was trying to rip her away. Lin didn’t mind. It was the first time they’d hugged, the first time they even talked seriously since the incident with Su. Since their family finally broke for good.

“I have a secret to tell you, Linny,” Toph said, once she calmed down.

“After the last one, I don’t think it can shock me. Unless, I’m somehow in line to be Earth Queen.” Lin pulled away just a little bit to look up at her mother. The woman’s face was completely stoic as she said the next sentence.

“I’m quitting the Force.”

“What?” Lin jerked into a sitting position. “You don’t wanna be Chief anymore?”

“Yeah, I’ve been done for a while now.”

“If it’s about Su, that doesn’t mean you—”

“It’s not _about_ anyone, I’m just… done. I’m really done this time.”

“You can’t be _done_ , you’re… You’re Toph Beifong, you… The Force needs you.” Lin stared back at her mother’s determined face in disbelief.

“That’s exactly why I’m done.”

“But who’ll be Chief instead of you? Huang? That’ll be a shit show.”

“Nah.” Toph sat up too. “He’s not ambitious enough. My money’s on Hong.”

“That’s not better…”

“What’d you think, Linny? That I’d stay Chief till I drop dead?”

Lin thought about it. “Kind of… Yeah.”

“I’ll still visit.” Toph got up slowly and started retying her hair.

“Visit? What? You’re going somewhere?” Lin didn’t want that to happen at first, but then it hit her. She’d go and find Su. That was… Actually, pretty sweet from her. Brining her missing daughter home. Lin wasn’t ready for her whole view of her mother to shift in only a day.

“I’m going to travel. I don’t know where yet… I’ll… I’ll visit eventually.”

“You’re not going to get Su?”

“And how’d I do that, Lin? She doesn’t wanna be found, your sister.” Lin knew it was the truth, but she still hated hearing it. “Now that you know about Kanto, that’s everything. That’s the only reason I couldn’t be replaced.”

“That’s…” Lin wasn’t about to beg her to stay. “I guess, then, have a good trip, Mom.”

**oooooooooo**

Tenzin found Lin sitting under Toph’s statue at police headquarters. He took a seat next to her without a word, leaning against one of statue-Toph’s legs.

“Any particular reason you didn’t come home?” he asked. He was maybe the only person in the world who could ask that question and not sound judgmental.

“Sorry.”

“Bad first day back?”

“I’ll say…” She sighed. “It’s nothing. How’d you know to find me here?”

“You’re kidding?” He chuckled. “I’ve been doing it for years. Here’s the official Lin Beifong whereabouts list… Police station. The apartment. Hospital. Under this statue.”

She smiled slightly and leaned on him, signaling him to put his arm around her. The statue was Tenzin’s thing while they were kids. Not Toph’s statue, of course, but Aang’s. As a teenager, Tenzin would sometimes go to sulk on Aang Memorial Island, right under the big statue of the Avatar, saying that he wanted to be _in his father’s shadow_ literally as well as figuratively.

Lin had thought him dramatic at the time, but after becoming one of her mother’s officers, she not only understood, but often did the same thing. It helped that Toph’s statue was high up so no one could really see her if they weren’t looking for her and that it offered a decent view of the city.

“How’s your arm?” Tenzin asked, leaning over to place a kiss on her forehead.

“Better.”

“That’s good, I guess. I had to distract myself today, I was so worried about you out there… And I know you’re not alone, but still. I bought us new curtains, and those cookies you like, but I didn’t have time to cook because Mom called me up to help her move the…”

Lin sat there quietly, watching the city lights and listening to Tenzin go on and on about curtains and some old scrolls he had to get off his mother’s hands and the nice new delivery guy their favorite restaurant hired. Who would’ve known that it would be that little piece of normality that would finally calm her down?

Once Tenzin had finally said his piece, she spoke up, quietly.

“I met my father today.” The words still didn’t seem real, even as she said them.

“And you let _me_ go first?!”

That made her smile.

“Are you okay?” he asked next, after a few silent moments.

“I’m fine, what’s with you?” She elbowed him gently. “You’re not gonna ask who he is? How it happened? Where he was all this time?”

“I… I won’t say I don’t wanna know, but it’s not entirely my business. You don’t have to tell me tonight if you don’t want to. Or ever. I only care that you’re okay. It doesn’t really matter to me how you came to be, I’m just very grateful you _are_ here.”

“I’ll be okay.” She kissed him then, softly. “But you’re also dying to know… I know you.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly… I’m here for you, if you want to confide in me.”

“Give it up, Tenzin.”

“Alright. I want to know. I’m _dying_ to know! Is that what you want to hear?” He took a deep breath. “I mean, how did it even happen? Was he at your mother’s when you went today? Is he going to be a part of your life now? Will I be able to meet him? Do I already know him? Did you know you were going to meet him? And why now? Why today?”

Lin interrupted his endless string of questions by placing a finger on his lips.

“Easy,” she whispered. “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. Ever.”

“Of course. Not a soul.”

“I mean it, Tenzin. Not your parents, not any of our friends. No one. For legal reasons…”

“Legal reasons?”

Then she told him everything. Everything she knew, that is.

“So he’s…”

“Yeah.”

“And your mother just…”

“Yup.”

“A triad leader?”

“The most feared one, apparently.”

“Imagine that…” Tenzin looked completely out of it after hearing the story. So much so that Lin begun thinking she might’ve actually taken the news quite well.

“What are you thinking, Tez?” She hoped none of it changed how he thought of her, but it was a lot to hope since it was already changing how she thought of herself.

“Did you know Kya, Bumi and Izumi had a bet about this?” he asked, a part of his mind still processing.

“So who won?”

“No one…” He chuckled. “No one saw this coming.”

“My mom wins then…”

“So what are you gonna do now?” He turned the conversation back to serious.

“I don’t know, Tenzin. I don’t…” She slipped from his embrace and stood up, only reaching to statue-Toph’s knee. “I’m here thinking, and I don’t know if there’s a right answer.”

“I think I understand,” he said meaningfully. “Your father wants to have a relationship with you and you’re not sure if you can trust him…”

“No! What?” Lin started pacing. “He lost his chance and I’ve got bigger rocks to move… At first, I thought I’d just quit my job and be done with it. Maybe teach earthbending somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, but then—”

“Wait, wait… What?!” Tenzin stood up too. “Lin?”

“Don’t you get it, Tenzin?” She couldn’t help how hurt her voice sounded. “It was all a lie. I’ve been playing with the net down… Every single thing I did since I became an officer…” She looked over to him and noticed he didn’t look like he understood. “Do you remember how your father always let us win at Pai Sho?”

“Yes, to make us happy. To keep us interested in the game and practicing.”

“And that was a fine thing to do when we were five, acceptable when we were ten, but as I’ve found out today, my father is still doing that to me!”

“You’re a great police officer, Lin. No one can deny—”

“And how would I know that, Tenzin, when I’ve been fighting people who can’t fight back?! First time I went up against someone who meant business, I got this.” She touched her scars. “My father’s powerful, he could’ve had people at the academy, at my schools, anywhere—”

Tenzin embraced her then, and she didn’t fight it, but she didn’t relax either.

“This is too much for anyone to sort out in just a day. Please, come home with me.”

“I think I’ll just ask for a transfer from Organized Crime. I can’t do Narcotics either… I’ll take something that has nothing to do with the triads. That way there will be no conflict of interest,” she said, resigned.

“Your plan is to write parking tickets?” Tenzin pulled away this time.

“Well, I don’t like it either, but what choice did they leave me?!”

“All the choice in the world!”

“I though you of all people would understand this decision!”

“Oh, I do, that’s what worries me.” He took her hands into his, running his thumbs over her palms gently. “It’s exactly what I would do. It’s the airbender’s way out. Avoid, avoid, avoid… The Lin I know despises that way. No, she takes the earthbender’s way. Face—”

“Face things head-on,” Lin completed the thought before going silent for a few moments.

“Spirits, Tenzin, you’re absolutely right,” she added. “Mom leaves, I transfer, and he wins… Not on my watch. Head-on.”

With that she walked up to the edge and shot out her cable to a nearby building, so that she could swing down. Her body readied for a jump when she suddenly stiffened and stopped. Then in a second, she hurried back to him and surprised him with a deep kiss.

“Thank you, Tenzin. I know exactly what I have to do.”

**oooooooooo**

**_Day 21_ **

Lin waited at the docks, staring at the tower clock not far away. He was late. She probably should’ve left ten minutes ago, any self-respecting person would’ve already. She wasn’t well-suited for these, middle of the night meetings in dodgy locations. Neither was she well-suited for lying, her mother’s truthseeing powers discouraged that pretty early in her life.

Just as she was remembering a particularly dear memory of her mother and her one morning when she was little, Lin felt someone’s hand on her shoulder. In less than a breath she had her wrist knife drawn out and pointed at the stranger. Only it wasn’t a stranger.

“I surrender…” It was Kanto, smiling at her and holding up his hands as a joke.

“Mom taught you how to negate the vibrations from your steps?” Lin was a bit upset there were probably dozens of criminals out there now that knew how to do that. And to think Toph made her promise to _keep it in the family_.

“Don’t sweat, it’s still in the family.” He crossed his arms and took a spot next to her. “And I suck at it.”

They were both turned to the ocean now, staring forward into the blackness of the horizon.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

“Business meeting?” Lin gestured to the scrapes on his hands.

He hid them from view. “Let’s just say the Red Monsoon Triad won’t bother anyone for some time now.”

Lin rolled her eyes. Her life was so much simpler a month ago… And to think she used to joke around with her other colleges when something like this would happen to a triad.

“This was a mistake,” she said, yet didn’t move.

“I heard about your mother leaving. I’m…” Kanto sighed. “I need you to know I had nothing to do with it. I even tried to talk her out of it. She just didn’t wanna listen, you know how she is…”

“I do know.”

“I warned her. I told her it’s like a never-ending holiday for the triads now. It’ll soon be complete chaos, and I escalated this conflict with the Monsoons to get them out of the game, but I can’t hold everyone back, Lin.” He turned to her then, and she saw that look. That expression her mother always had before taking on the world every day and still coming up short every single time…

“I know that, too.”

“Putting that aside, I’m so glad you agreed to these meetings. I promise, there is no way anyone could catch us, Toph and I did it hundreds of times… And I’d really like the chance to talk to you, even if it is about work.”

“I agreed to _a_ meeting.” She turned to look at him as she said this. “Because I have one thing to say to you.”

“Go ahead.” He turned too. Lin focused on his eyes and tried to remember she was looking at a very, very dangerous man. A man that hurt her mother. A man that killed regularly.

Not just her dad.

“Whatever arrangement you had with my mother is done. I don’t want any unofficial information from you. I don’t want your help, and I don’t need your protection. Your little triad rule concerning me, that’s done now.”

“Enforce it, will you?” he joked.

“I will, actually. You see, next time you think about doing something to _keep me safe_ , you might wanna think long and hard, because it could just as easily be a trap I set for you. I know what you do now…”

“You came here to tell me that?”

“I came here tonight to give you a heads-up, because from now on I will work day and night and I will not stop until you’re behind bars. I won’t rest until the Shades are just a horrible memory and the triads are no more.”

Kanto smiled wide.

“What’s so funny?!” she raised her voice.

“I would like to see you try.”

“You will.”

“I honestly hope you’ll make it happen. Spirits know, your parents couldn’t…” He took a deep breath then, glancing at the ocean. “I’ll tell you what, kid…” He punched her shoulder affectionately. “You show me you can make it happen, I’ll fucking march into the station with my hands over my head and confess to everything.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Try me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay… Toph leaves town, Lin threatens her father and vows to work and work until she fixes the city for everyone. I kind of felt this would be the time that everyone stopped seeing Lin as just Toph’s daughter (including her too) and started seeing her as her own person, who also happens to be a total badass in her own right.
> 
> Surprisingly, this isn’t over yet… But the next few chapters till the end will be almost impossible to follow if you haven’t read my story “Who the F is Kanto?” so I recommend you do that right now. This one might’ve been slightly confusing without the context as well.


	5. Big Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, once again this will make zero sense to people who haven’t read “Who the F is Kanto?”.
> 
> And for those who have read that story… We had Toph’s perspective, we had Lin’s perspective, I thought it fair to do Kanto’s perspective next. So the following chapters will go a bit back in time and follow him.

**_7 months before Lin’s born_ **

Kanto was on his way to Toph for the last time before he got pardoned. It was the last step before he was a free man with a loving girlfriend, a posh apartment and a steady job. Yet it didn’t feel right. Any of it.

Being a police informant, Kanto was no stranger to guilt. It followed him around with more devotion than his shadow. It was there while he was laughing with his friends, drinking and gambling, all the while knowing he was setting them up to be arrested or worse the day after. It was there while he held Toph in his arms and whispered sweet nothings into her ear, as he remembered calling her names and saying truly vile things about her in an effort to fit in with the triad. He usually did his best to push the guilt down and keep marching on, but…

Toph… Toph was something special. Toph was perfect. Toph was just so… mind-blowingly out of his league, it was a wonder he even took his shot when he did. But Toph was out of everyone’s league… Toph had her own league… And somehow, she loved him back! She never said it in so many words, but he knew. She never opened up to anyone if they weren’t already family in her eyes.

And in a while, she’d meet him right here!

He made it to the apartment a bit too early, he was just too inpatient. _Why?_ The operation had gone perfectly according to plan. Everything was coming together, then why couldn’t Kanto just be happy like he was supposed to be? His heart was pumping like he was running from certain death.

He sat down on the carpet in the living room, then took out the ring from his jacket pocket and stared at it as it glistened between his dirty fingers.

Proposing to a cop with a stolen ring… Her really was a dumbass. But he’d never be able to afford one worthy of her, so he thought to make use of his last day as a criminal. One last crime for something he actually wanted. She wouldn’t _see_ the difference, of course, and even if she did, she wouldn’t care. But Kanto wanted more than her _yes_. Kanto wanted to fit into her life. He wanted her friends and her parents to be satisfied with the ring, and with him.

Another five minutes passed, and he still wasn’t calming down, only getting more riled up. Except this time, he wasn’t thinking about the woman he loved. Not exactly.

Survivor’s guilt.

Kanto didn’t yet know what that was then. Didn’t even know it was a thing. In a few years he’d overhear a conversation in a bar between a friend of his and an old war veteran that explained the strange psychological phenomenon, leading Kanto to realize…

_Fuck, that’s me._

And that was him that day in the apartment. Minutes from being free, minutes from getting everything he wanted he _realized_ he didn’t really deserve it. He’d done so many bad thigs in his life… He’d put away bad guys, too, but he didn’t count that as good deeds for himself, they weren’t good, they were hypocritical. Why would he get to walk away when he made sure so many others didn’t get to? When Ling didn’t get to?

Before he knew it, he’d thrown the ring through the window as far as he could. Toph would come to meet him soon. He made sure their broom signal told her there was no use in waiting. But he knew she’d wait anyway, and he’d let her keep waiting until she found someone who deserved her.

Kanto stood up, punched a wall, then left the apartment.

Toph was probably better off this way, she wasn’t like him. He was a lost cause. Even if he went with her, who’s to say he’d be able to stop the lying, thieving, gambling... No, the Shades would stay with him forever, no matter where he went. There was however one thing he could still do. The Shades ruined him, and the least he could do now was return the favor.

**oooooooooo**

“Hey, check it out, guys! It’s Kanto!” The whole bar turned to him. Even the band stopped playing.

It was a risk, coming back to the triad. One overly paranoid person making the connection between Kanto leaving and everything going to shit was enough to get him killed in the worst way imaginable. These people weren’t cops, they didn’t need anything as flimsy as proof to gut a man.

“The fuck happened after I left?” He asked as the crowd was just blankly staring at him.

“Cops! Everywhere, man! The bosses, they’re all gone!” A man explained hysterically.

“We thought you were gone too…” another one added.

“How’d you get away, anyway?”

“Yeah, where were you, Kanto?!”

He raised his hands to swat away some that had gotten too close, when another voice joined in. It was a fourth ring girl working under him for some time. Her name was Xia— Well, Xia something…

“Would you all fuck off?!” She shoved the closest man away. “Look at his hand! While you were all here, shitting yourselves scared, he was fighting them! Weren’t you, Boss?”

Kanto was a bit shocked by the turn of events so the best he could offer them was a nod.

“Yeah, I saw him too… He was giving them hell!”

“I saw it too!”

“I saw him punch Toph in the face!”

“I’m the last fifth ring left?” Kanto whispered to Xia-Something.

“Yeah, Boss. People have already started going their separate ways.” She moved her head to make sure no one heard them. “You want that throne, you gotta sit your ass on it right now.”

**oooooooooo**

Kanto knew talking to Toph about his decision would by no means be a pleasant interaction, but he didn’t really expect she’d break his bones. To be fair, it wasn’t his first break-up that ended with him getting medical attention, but he really needed to be in top shape tonight.

And instead it hurt to breathe.

“So you’re saying the earthquake did this?” Yu-Jin helped Kanto sit down once he was back to the new Terra Triad headquarters. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, I’m not one of your dumb bitches, man.”

As the new triad boss, he probably should’ve said something to that, but Jin was an old childhood friend, and he was the only one that still treated Kanto the same.

“No offense, of course…” Jin looked to Xia entering the room with a bottle of something. Kanto really hoped that, whatever it was, it’d get him walking again because for the plan to work they needed to move ten minutes ago.

“I am in no way _one of his dumb bitches_.” She paid Jin no mind, but sat down next to Kanto and got his attention by snapping her fingers. “It doesn’t matter how he got fucked up, it matters how we’re gonna get him fighting again. Can you stand, Boss?”

“Sort of.” Kanto managed. “But it’s not just my leg.”

“Broken ribs, I think.” Jin shoved his way next to Xia.

“You wanna do this?” She turned with distain in her eyes.

“It don’t matter. He’s wrecked. Unless, you got a waterbending healer in that bottle, we’ll have to go without him.”

“Better. It’s Scorching Ice.”

Kanto visibly jumped as Xia opened the masked bottle, revealing the blueish powder inside. It was _the_ drug. Then one that destroyed Kanto’s family. The one that killed his parents. The one that left him with no choice but this life.

“No.” Kanto hissed.

“What?”

“You fucking heard me! Anything but the Ice. Not that. Not ever.”

“Trust me, sister, he ain’t taking that.” Jin put a hand on Xia’s shoulder. “His parents used.”

“You don’t wanna be touching me,” Xia warned. “It’s the only thing we have in stock, Boss. Just a little whiff and you’ll be able to go around like nothing happened.”

“The chick is right, man. They need a boss out there,” Jin interjected.

“The what?” Xia straightened and faced Jin.

“Kanto, please get this _woman_ out of our hair so we can work. As your second—”

“You’re not his second in command, you’re the mascot.” Xia smirked. “He’s not stupid to have you overseeing his business.”

“Man, you need to get her out of my face soon, or I won’t be able to say I don’t hit girls anymore,” Jin said.

“Oh, you don’t hit girls?” she challenged.

“That’s right.”

“Is that a primitive moral code or simply an inability?”

“Kanto, man, you gotta call it.”

“Yeah, Boss, you need to decide right now who’s it gonna be. Me or _this_?”

“I’m no _this_ , bitch.”

“Oh, so only women can be called dehumanizing things?”

“I swear, that’s why no one likes—”

“Shut up!” Kanto slammed his fist on the table, even though it hurt like he’d broken it. If he couldn’t discipline two people how would he ever be able to run the triad for more than a few days…?

“Who’s your second then?” Xia asked. They were both staring at him, and he’d had enough. He didn’t make Toph cry for this.

“How about this?!” He stood up forcefully, ignoring the pain. “The first one of you to get off my dick about it is my second!”

Silence.

“That’s more like it.” Kanto took turns watching each of them. “You’re both my fifth-ringers for now. Bother me about choosing again, and it’s not you.”

He snatched the Ice from the girl’s hand. He didn’t make Toph lose control to fail tonight. He didn’t fucking _hit_ her to fail tonight. He fought off a swift wave of sickness upon remembering that. He did what he did to get her out of commission tonight. He got lucky with the earthquake. Every cop in town would be there, dealing with that on the opposite part of the city from the prison.

“How much do I take if I still wanna wake up tomorrow?” Kanto asked.

Silence.

“Answer me!” He yelled, inches from Xia’s face.

“One… One bottle cap should do the trick.”

Kanto didn’t think about it. He wouldn’t have gone through with it if he did. He thought about Toph’s face. All the things she screamed at him… He deserved them.

The Ice went up his nose.

The drug’s name came from the fact that it came in bluish crystals and when in use, gave the skin a burning sensation throughout the whole body. That kicked in quicker than expected, causing Kanto to lean against a wall.

“What’s his deal?” Jin whispered, thinking only Xia heard him. “You’re here, only trying to help him…”

“It’s fine.”

“I won’t call you a chick anymore, if you’re not cool with it.” Jin added. “I love women in the triad, my ma was one, you know. If you were a dude, you’d be annoying too.”

Xia considered his words for a second, then changed the subject. “You think he’s out of it?”

“Kanto, you with us?”

“Boss,” Kanto managed. The pain was almost gone, and his head was racing.

“What?” Jin come closer.

“Call me _Boss_ or call an ambulance!” He grabbed his friend’s collar forcefully.

**oooooooooo**

Getting into the prison in these conditions proved easy, even with such a small fraction of the Terra Triad behind him. Kanto left his people getting out their colleagues who got captured on the general population floors. He had a special task, climbing up to the top floor where they kept prisoners under special protection. A floor that, as he understood from Toph’s stories, would hold every fifth ring member of his triad, including their former boss Renshu. And they would be chi-blocked to prevent escape attempts.

He told his people he would go upstairs himself and free them. And the idiots believed him. Lying to people who weren’t Toph really was too easy…

As he got closer, Kanto’s seismic sense told him he’d assumed correctly. He counted all nine fifth ring members in individual cells, and of course, the boss.

“Who goes there?” Asked a single guard, but before he could even get up from his chair, Kanto used his bending on the man’s armor to slam him into the nearest wall. He’d live. Probably.

“Kanto, my boy, I never doubted you,” Renshu started. “You’ll be rewarded for this, believe me…”

The other fifth-ringers chatted amongst themselves as Kanto took the keyring from the guard with his bending alone. They cheered and crowded the doors to the cells as he separated the keys in the air.

“I could always tell you’d make something out of yourself someday. I always liked you, boy.” Renshu continued talking. Kanto couldn’t listen to him for another second. The Ice was messing up his precision with bending, but luckily Toph drilled some things into him good. He dropped all pretense, then and positioned his hands palms-up, just like Toph always did. This only seemed to phase the boss, as he probably dealt with the Chief a whole lot.

Kanto flexed both hands then and the loose keys went flying into the cells and through the throats of his former triad-mates.

He killed all of them but Renshu. He didn’t get to die. Not yet.

This, at least, made the old man shut up. He looked around in horror.

“What’ve you done, boy?” The man stepped further away from the bars, as if they could protect him. “If it’s money you want, I have—”

“Now you listen.” Kanto bended the man’s cell open so he could step inside. “You wanna know how you got captured? Huh? You wanna know how you lost, old man?!”

“I should’ve known… The second you started metalbending I should’ve snapped your neck. _Boss, I figured it out on my own_.” He chuckled desperately. “What did Beifong offer you?”

“What’s important is what I offered her.”

“Don’t kid yourself, boy. Whatever she promised, it’s a lie. That’s what they do, they don’t give a fuck about what happens to guys like us…”

“There is no _guys like us_ anymore. I’m done with you.”

“Sure, there is. We look after our own… Kanto, there isn’t a fifth-ring that hasn’t snitched in his life, we do what we must. No harm done.” The man’s frantic gestures signaled just how scared he really was. “You and I can walk out of here, fuck, I’ll even make you my second in command for your skill with metal.”

“I just killed your entire fifth ring.”

“Those idiots? Kanto, please, they were nothing… Replaceable. Nothing like you, my boy.” Renshu forced a smile. “How about we get out of here now?”

“You really don’t give a single fuck about anyone that works for you, do you?”

The former boss then made a pathetic attempt to slip out of the cell, but a metal bolt came flying from somewhere and showed him back. Kanto had nowhere close to the control Toph had. He had to move his whole body to make that bolt hit, so when Renshu hit the wall, Kanto bended the wall forward to envelop the man’s hands and feet.

“Let’s talk about this. Kanto, you used to be reasonable.”

“I also used to have a brother.”

“And that was a damn tragedy that took him—”

Kanto didn’t answer, only extended his left hand to the side, causing the bars to the cells in that direction to start bending, breaking and flying around unpredictably. Oh, how he loved when he didn’t need to be precise.

“Really, really try to remember it!”

The old man’s eyes widened as he finally remembered running the little freckled boy through with an earth spike.

“Oh, Kanto, that was… I really thought it was him I—”

Kanto did a similar thing with his right hand and broke the cells to his right, also making quite a racket in the process.

“You killed my brother in front of me and you expect me to keep dancing for you?!” He screamed into the man’s face and tears filled his eyes. “You asked me what Toph offered me! Nothing! Nothing compared to getting rid of you forever!”

“I’m sorry, Kanto… I didn’t want to do that! I made a mistake! I’m sorry, I can’t give you more than that, but I am so sorry!”

“I don’t need you to apologize. I need you to die.” Kanto softened his voice, afraid of being heard outside the corridor. “But not before knowing that killing my brother was the mistake that cost you everything you ever had. Your money’s gone, your triad is mine and your life…” He raised one hand.

“No! No! No, please, no! Kanto… Just… I’m sorry I killed the boy. It… It tortures me. I’d give anything to take it back! Let me make it up to you now…”

This made Kanto pause for a few long moments.

“What was his name?” he asked suddenly.

Renshu’s face went white. “The kid’s… name?”

“My brother’s name. The name of the child you murdered. What was his name, huh? What was his fucking name, asshole?!” All the metal started flying around the room as Kanto swung his hands about, then stopped and rose into the air as his hands stayed pointed up.

“I…” The old man looked almost as scared then as Ling did while the life drained out of his eyes.

“Ling.” Kanto helped him remember.

“Ling! Of course, of course! Now, I—”

Kanto lowered his hands and at that moment every metal thing in the room flew towards Renshu at once. He must have been impaled dozens of times, Kanto didn’t stop to check. He ran out of the secure corridor and metalbended the door shut after himself.

When he found Jin bandaging Xia’s shoulder he told them their leaders were assassinated before he could free them. He blamed the Triple Threats. The whole triad bought it immediately, it was almost too easy.

They did, however, manage to get a few low-level triad members out of the general population prison and that painted Kanto as a hero on his third day as Triad Boss. He was celebrated as being the first leader to actually care for his people. An underdog who worked his way up to make everything better.

Back then he actually believed it. Believed he’d be a different leader than Renshu. One that actually cares for his people, for their neighborhood. A smart one. A selfless one. He believed he could do all of it for Ling.

**oooooooooo**

**_6 months before Lin’s born_ **

In the following month Kanto killed three times as many people as he’d killed up to that point in his life. Some of them he’d sent to their deaths, ordered them to die for him and his cause. Others he used in one way or another for his gains and left them to fend for themselves in an impossible situation. And then some, he killed in a more hands-on manner.

There was no better way. There was no raising above it. Good intentions didn’t matter for shit.

If you wanted to live, you had to win. If you wanted to win you had to pay, and the price, as he was beginning to understand, was always other people.

One day, he ventured out the Shades for a stake out. It was a common enough occurrence nowadays. This time they were hitting a jewelry store, and since it was supposed to be a big score, he was a part of it for his metalbending. He went to take a look at the place alone, like he always insisted, despite his friend Jin’s protests. Employee. _Employee_ Jin’s protests.

The job itself took fifteen minutes, he didn’t want to raise any suspicion at the store, yet Kanto didn’t return home immediately. With the extra cash that came with his position, he finally looked like he belonged in the nicer part of the city. He could walk around the streets without standing out and he did just that for a full hour. It was becoming a regular occurrence, now that he did it every time he had something to do outside the Shades.

He convinced himself he was just walking aimlessly, enjoying the feeling, but there was that undeniable fact there was only one thing in the fancy part of the city that really interested him. Eventually, like every time since then, he stopped in front of Toph’s building. The place where he was supposed to be living now.

He leaned against a fence on the other side of the street and looked at the building, considering his options. He wanted to go see her. He always wanted to go see her, yet this time it felt different. It was a bit late, but she could still be at work, he could sneak in and wait for her to come home and then…

_And then what?_

How would she even react to seeing him? Would she be cold and act like they don’t know each other? Would she let him talk? Did she miss him at all?

Oh, he missed _her_.

He missed her like he’d never missed an alive person before.

At that moment, the doors to the building opened and Toph walked out. The realization hit him then, that he’d never seen her out of her uniform outside their little apartment. Oh, he was missing out… She was beautiful standing there, the summer wind playing with her green and white tunic, blowing bangs out of the way to show her face.

He was gonna do it. He’d walk up to her. Her had to. She wouldn’t make a scene in a crowded street, and even if she did… He had to tell her he’d made the biggest mistake of his life a month ago.

Kanto looked left and right, and just as he was about to cross the street, a man exited Toph’s building. A Water Tribe man. He said something to her then, too quiet for Kanto to hear, they both laughed and continued down the street.

Kanto felt like he couldn’t move. That had to be Sokka, didn’t it? He never paid enough attention to the press to be sure, but the man with Toph was definitely the right age and she seemed comfortable with him. So that was Sokka…

Kanto found himself following the two of them without ever deciding to. The streets were quite crowded, so he was safe from being recognized by Toph’s seismic sense. She’d only realize it was him if she actively looked for him, and she didn’t look like she was thinking about anything other than Sokka at the moment.

The two of them were stopped by a group of people unexpectedly, probably fans. Guess, two world-renown heroes were harder to ignore than one. Sokka went right ahead and started talking to the people, a crowd forming around him, while he gestured around dramatically, probably for the purpose of telling a story.

_Toph hates this._

Kanto thought Sokka getting lost in the crowds of fans was the best thing that could’ve happened to him, but to his surprise Toph got into it too. She was laughing, interrupting and occasionally poking her friend as he told the story. If he was just her friend… Kanto talked to Toph about Sokka before, but he had never seen how the man looked at her. Like she was the only thing in the world that mattered… Kanto agreed on that, but still…

He started smoking as he followed the pair to a quiet little restaurant. He didn’t go in, just looked at them through the glass from afar. When Toph got suddenly serious he didn’t think much of it, neither did he when she placed both of her hands on her stomach while speaking. He might’ve thought about it some more and figured it out, if he wasn’t thrown off by what happened next.

Sokka got up awkwardly and offered Toph a hug that she happily accepted. Kanto didn’t wait for them to pull away from each other. He turned back and started walking away. That was the last time he ever went to check up on her. She was doing just fine, in fact a thousand times better than he thought he’d be doing ever again.

When he reached his headquarters that night, he asked Xia to get him some more Ice. The next year and a half were a complete blur of bloody triad business until he finally quit the habit. Not really being able to remember everything he’d done was somehow even harder on him.

**oooooooooo**

**_1 year after Lin’s born_ **

One afternoon Kanto burst into his office clutching yesterday’s newspaper, only to find Jin and Xia fucking against his desk. At least they stopped once he entered.

“Sorry, Boss, we—” Xia started, but Kanto waved her off and threw the newspaper onto the desk where they could all look at it. It had a photo of Chief Beifong walking the street with her infant in her arms.

“How old does this kid look to you?” he asked.

“A year, maybe?” Xia offered and Jin nodded in agreement as he zipped his pants back up.

“And everyone knew this, but me?”

“That she had a kid?” Jin shrugged. “Yeah, I heard about it back when she was born.”

“She?” Xia interjected. “I heard Beifong had a boy. I just can’t remember his name…”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a girl.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.”

“But we’re in agreement that she had a kid about a year ago?” Kanto asked and they both nodded.

“Tell me you’re not planning something with that kid,” Jin said. “Even for us, that’s…”

“Of course, not...” Kanto didn’t really listen to his friend go on because he was currently wrestling with the fact that he’d probably been a father for almost a year now, and that he’d been too drugged up to realize it. “I have to go.”

Kanto charged out of the room, then stopped, and stepped back in. “Almost forgot.” He pointed at where Jin already had his hands back on Xia. “Is this gonna be a problem?”

“No, Boss.”

“No, Sir.”

“Good.” He relaxed. “Nice going, Jin.”

The man smiled proudly.

“No congratulations to me?” Xia asked.

“You can do better.” Kanto added as he raced out for the second time. He had to find Toph.

**oooooooooo**

**_5 years after Lin’s born_ **

Kanto was having a terrible day. First, Jin and Xia broke the news that they were about to be parents. Superficially, it was good news, but it also lost him two of his best fifth-ringers.

_And his only friends…_

They’d asked to retire from the triad temporarily, but he knew once they gave family life a try, they’d never be back. But of course, he’d said yes… He started all of this to be better than the other bosses, to actually give a fuck about his people, how could he say no?

Then there was the second problem of the day. Well…

Kanto really had to get better office security one of these days. He’d just come back from an _interrogation_ of one of his guys who turned to the Triple Threats, when he found his office was already occupied. Inside, on his desk, sat what could only be described as an improbably beautiful woman.

Once he stepped inside, she looked him up and down with those Fire Nation golden eyes. “I’m looking for Kanto. Is that you?”

Kanto slammed the door behind himself. “Yeah. What’d you want?”

“Well, I must say your reputation is quite something. Kanto of the Terra Triad. Youngest first-generation boss in the city. The man who can break into anywhere…”

“Listen, I don’t want any of that Triple Threats bullshit you were hired to sell me, so just… You know where the door is.” He pulled out a cigarette, and before he could come up with a lighter, she lit it with her finger.

“Agni Kais.”

“Then what does your boss need with an earthbender?”

“So just because we’re firebenders, we have to hate every other nation?” She raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t _have to_ , but you do.”

“Not the way I run my triad…”

“What are you talking about? Madam Sakai runs the Agni Kais.” She was one of the oldest bosses in the city, everyone knew her.

“My mother. Yeah, she used to. She’s ash now…”

That was a way of putting it…

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t be. I killed her.” She took a step closer to him. “I’m Sun.” She came even closer. “I’m thinking I should start my time ruling with something big, something to show I’m not my mother. And I also thought the two of us, being the only triad bosses who aren’t old enough to have fought in the war, should, I don’t know… Be friends.” Saying that she pressed herself against him, and raised her hand to stroke his face. “The rumors do say _handsome_ , but they do not do you justice…”

“Save it,” Kanto said, standing frozen still as a statue. “You wanna talk business, we’ll talk.”

At that her expression changed to neutral in less than a second, all the desire gone instantly as she took a measured step backwards, leaning back on his desk. “Can’t blame a girl for trying…”

“Drink?” He offered.

“Please. And a smoke.”

He returned to her with a glass of his most expensive booze and she took the cigarette herself.

“I hope you’re not offended…” he started.

“You’re not really my type.” She took a huge sip of her drink.

“How so?”

“You’re not a woman.”

“Ah.”

“Negotiation tactic.”

“Been there.” He took a big sip too. “So what’s the big job?”

“We’re taking down Toph.”

Kanto dropped his glass.

“You okay there, man?” She cracked a smile.

“Lack of sleep.” His brain was screaming at him to find out more, to stop it, to warn her, to do _something_ …

“Who’s _we_?” Kanto asked, ignoring the broken glass for now.

“Me and Yakone. And you if you want in.”

“Yakone of the Red Monsoon Triad?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Well, he’s taken an interest in you… He said if Kanto’s in, that he’s in too.”

“You know what they say about him…”

“That’s just stereotypical bullshit. Not every waterbender’s a bloodbender.”

“But they say he can—”

“I know, and I get why they say stuff, he’s creepy, but no one can do what they say.” Sun finished her drink and put it down. “You in, Terra Triad?”

“Pass.”

As long as it couldn’t happen without him, there was no reason to alert Toph, right?

“Of course…” She scoffed. “Not a pair of balls in the whole triad… Is it because she’s your element?”

“You can’t take Toph, Sun. Trust me.”

“If it was the fucking Fire Lord, I’d still do it. The bitch’s a bother to all of us, and she’d never expect us to join forces against her. Imagine it! Three warring triads suddenly stop fighting and turn on her in a single perfectly planned moment… Imagine the look on her face…”

He did. It hurt.

If that happened Toph would die, and the last expression on her face would be helplessness mixed with betrayal, because she would think he was behind it…

“Can’t be done.” Kanto kept his face as neutral as possible despite the images of the woman he loved dying, flashing before his eyes. “I’ve been part of efforts before. Smaller scale, same conclusion. It cannot be done for several reasons… Firstly, no one in the world knows the true extent of her power, probably not even she herself. Then, of course, if you fail, she’d destroy you, no doubt about it, you wouldn’t survive, and lastly, if you somehow did succeed you’d be making enemies of some of the most powerful people in the world. Toph. Is. Off. Limits.”

“But if we—”

“Toph is to be avoided and misdirected. You cannot win.”

“We’ll see about that!” Sun started towards the exit, then turned. “Everyone keeps going on and on about how that bitch is invincible, but you know what?! You’re all not men enough to try her! You’re a fucking coward!” She spit at him then, and in less than a breath found herself violently pinned to a wall.

“Oh, so you’re no a statue after all,” She said before heating up her body, making Kanto pull his hand from her throat. “This isn’t over.”

“I’ll send you postcards when you’re in prison.”

The woman left then, yet Kanto couldn’t calm down. What if Yakone went through with it regardless? What if this crazy woman somehow convinced another triad? Or came up with another trick?

When the woman you loved was Toph Beifong, you didn’t really get used to worrying for her safety and Kanto really didn’t like how it felt. He had to find out more. He had to do more to prevent it.

He’d become a triad boss to protect everyone in the Shades, and he’d failed miserably. Maybe his aims were just too high. But maybe he was strong enough now to protect just the people that were important to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last scene refers to the woman who kidnapped Lin in the last story. So next chapter doesn’t pick that back up, we already covered it.
> 
> And I know there were a lot of OCs, but next chapter I promise a lot of Toph, Lin and Suyin. PROMISE.
> 
> I just wanted to give a little montage of Kanto failing to fix the world for everyone and then deciding his time is better spent watching out for Toph and Lin, because that is actually manageable.
> 
> Update in a few days.


	6. Guardian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I don’t think I’ve explained it in this story, but the chapter titles are supposed to be like roles Kanto takes on… The first four are “who he is to Lin at that point”, while the other ones are “who he thinks he is at that point”
> 
> Anyway, enjoy… This one is a little longer than I expected.

**_8 years after Lin’s born_ **

Every criminal in Republic City knew sneaking into Toph Beifong’s house was impossible. Luckily for Kanto that wasn’t what he was up to. He needed to talk to her, and there was no time for messengers or secret codes. Instead he just tumbled into one of the rooms through the window, and remained there, lying on the floor, bleeding out slowly.

She had to feel him there. Before entering, he checked. He could sense her form upstairs, together with one smaller form and one really small form.

The door to the room opened and closed. Now that he looked around it was probably the radio room.

“You have three seconds to explain yourself.” He could’ve sworn then her voice had healing properties, since as soon as he heard her again, his breathing got clearer, his vision less blurry and all that pain wasn’t too much anymore.

“Emergency.”

“More.”

“I think you might know a crime lord by the name of Yakone.” He broke into a bad sounding cough.

“I know a crime lord by the name of _Kanto_.” She crossed her hands, distracted for a second. “Your heart is going insane. What’s wrong with you?”

“Yakone’s a bloodbender, Toph. You have to find Aang and you two have to bust him.” He tried to stand, slowly.

“You’re welcome to testify against him… All I’m getting are fake witnesses who don’t even know how bloodbending works. I personally thought it was all bullshit. But that’s beside the point, Kanto, you can’t just break in here whenever you have a problem. Me and you aren’t… anything, anymore and—”

He collapsed then. He was sure his consciousness didn’t escape him even for a second, his legs just gave out for a moment.

“Kanto, what the fuck?” She helped him up, then let him lean on the wall. “You’re bleeding.”

She felt it collecting on his chin, then used her sleeve to wipe it from one side of his face. It’s not that the act of kindness wasn’t wanted, it was just the opposite, it was so welcome that Kanto felt bad letting her come that close again. Her face was wrinkled with concern. He never needed her truthseeing power to know what she was thinking, it was all so plain on her face.

“I think it’d be a good idea to seduce a doctor next.” She wiped the other side of his face too, trying and failing to find a wound. “Or at the rate you’re going, maybe a coroner.”

He found the strength to grab her arm and pull it from his face. He had to focus. “Yakone and I had a little disagreement earlier.”

“Did you now?”

“He suggested I answer to him from now on, and I offered a counter proposal which consisted of him kissing my ass and fucking off.”

“So you were asking for it?”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know he could bloodbend?”

“Wait, you’re saying this was today? It’s not a full moon, it’s barely afternoon. How would—” Toph shut up abruptly, then made a swift motion with her feet, bending an earth wall separating Kanto from the rest of the room. In a few moments he found out why, when he sensed light footsteps come to the door of the radio room.

“Mama, Su’s awake again.” Lin stood at the entrance. Kanto couldn’t see any of it, but he could hear just as well as if he was there in front of her. He was so close to his daughter, it woke up an old ache in his chest.

“So what? Ignore her, she’ll drift back to sleep.”

“She says she’s hungry.”

“Then feed her.”

“Yeah, and what? You’ll do my homework?”

Kanto smiled wide, wanting their exchange to last forever. He was pretty sure then he’d wanna grow old listening to their daughter try to get out of helping around the house.

“Can you just do it for me, Linny?”

A deep sigh. “Yeah, okay.”

“I bought bread today.”

“Doesn’t matter. Su only eats animal crackers anyway.” Kanto felt Lin shift at the door. “Is that blood?”

“I have a nosebleed. What’s it to ya?”

“It’s not on your nose.”

“Lin, who’s the detective, you or me?”

“You’re a police chief.”

“And now she’s a lawyer!”

“What’s up with the wall?

“I’m redecorating...”

“You’re being weird, Mom.”

“Go feed your sister, kiddo.” With that, Toph closed the door. Then she locked it with metalbending and lowered the wall separating Kanto.

“Quit your snickering, I’m usually better at this _mom_ thing.”

“No, you’re… You’re both perfect.” By that point Kanto had forgotten all the pain completely.

“Mom, Su’s up on the rail again!” They heard Lin yell from outside.

“So, get her the fuck down!” Toph yelled back without moving.

“Su, get the fuck down!” Lin echoed her mother’s command. Kanto laughed wholeheartedly.

“Lin, I said no fucking swearing until you’re ten!”

“But you said—”

“I’m older than ten!”

Silence. Then a thud.

“So you’re saying he bloodbended you during the day?” Toph asked.

“Shouldn’t you ask about that?” Kanto gestured to the direction the noise came from.

“Why? She caught her.”

“I got her, Mom!” Came from outside a moment later.

“I’m confused by Yakone’s skills too.” Kanto attempted to stand on his own again. “But you learned how to bend metal. Maybe it’s possible he’s _you_ just for waterbending.”

“Maybe. I still don’t see what this’s got to do with me, Kanto. It’s not like he’ll do it in front of me, even if he can do it.”

“True, but you gotta prove it somehow. Toph, his hold over me, it was…”

“What’d he do to you?”

“I don’t even know… I’m bleeding from everywhere, my eyes, ears, nails… There’s no fighting him! He had my whole team immobilized, I fought as hard as I could, but he’s just… It’s like trying to take control of a piece of metal from you.”

“Impossible, yeah… Maybe for you, Hotshot, but I…” He saw it on her face that she regretted using the nickname. “I’m different.”

“Listen to me, Toph. The second he sees you, he can lift you up in the air, and you won’t be able to see, then, trust me, it’s all pain from there.” Kanto didn’t like the face Toph made next. It was half complete terror, half terrifying defiance.

“I’ll tell Aang. Thanks, I guess…”

“So you’re not gonna go after him alone?”

“For fuck’s sake, Kanto, how about you worry about yourself, and leave me alone?” She moved so they were face to face.

He didn’t know. He had no fucking idea why he thought of her. Why his only thought while being bent and twisted like a rag doll by a bloodbender was how to stop it from ever happening to Toph.

“Listen, I—” He started, but with those first words a few drops of blood flew from his mouth and onto her face.

“Was that also…?”

“Sorry.”

“That’s it. We’re getting you checked.” She started towards the door, then gestured for him to follow towards the rest of the house. He did so, while keeping his mouth shut. If anyone could avoid Lin through the house, it was Toph with her seismic sense. Even though they only had to pass two rooms to get to the front door, Kanto secretly hoped Lin would catch them. And was that so wrong? Wanting to see his daughter at least for a second every few years?

“I’m heading out, Lin!” Toph shouted once she was at the door.

“Wait! Mom, we’re out of those crackers!” It could be heard from the kitchen.

“Deal with it, I have work to do!” Toph slammed the door after herself.

“Well, that wasn’t cool.” Kanto stared back at her. “She’s a good kid.”

“She’s a pain in my ass, a lot like her father. And there can be no more visits like this once her sensing gets decent.”

“Understood.”

“Get in the trunk.” Toph gestured to the car.

“What?”

“If we’re doing this, you can’t be seen. Trunk or find your own doctor.”

“Fine.” He reluctantly, shoved himself into the insufficient space.

“And not a word about who you are once we’re there.”

**oooooooooo**

“What was this emergency?” Katara asked, and Toph moved to the side, revealing Kanto and his blood-soaked face. “Oh, Spirits, what happened?”

The woman rushed to Kanto, already taking out a small amount of water to start her healing on him immediately. For some reason he’d been expecting the process to hurt. It was good for you, so it made sense that it at least wouldn’t be pleasant, but the sensations coming from his nose while this woman bended water over it were strangely soothing.

Katara also wasn’t what he expected. Going only by Toph’s stories, not by the news, which he wasn’t much interested in, he’d expected Katara to be much older. He did get one part from Toph right, though, and that was that Katara didn’t even ask his name before she started helping.

“He had a run-in with a bloodbender,” Toph explained, and Katara looked back at him with such guilt, like she was the one that did this to him. “Now, can you do that someplace private?”

Katara nodded and slowly led both of them to an empty bedroom, where she instructed Kanto to lie down.

“You done yet?” Toph asked, standing by the closed door like she was a bodyguard.

“Done? Toph, this much internal bleeding will take some time to get under control. He could die!” Katara remembered herself then, before turning back to Kanto with a smile. “But of course, you won’t, Sir. Because I have everything under control. I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl.”

“Of course. I trust you,” Kanto managed as she moved to work on his chest. “I’m just glad to be taken seriously.”

“Oh, I assure you, Toph will take this attack very, very seriously.” The woman turned briefly to the Chief only to turn back to her work and miss Toph flipping off Kanto from her spot near the door.

“He’s a crybaby, he’ll be fine.”

“Toph, you might want to call Aang immediately. He’s at the Northern Air Temple with Tenzin right now. You can use out radio room.”

“Thank you,” Toph said, yet didn’t move.

“Didn’t you hear me? You want to call right now before they move on, possibly to a place without a radio.”

Toph sighed. “Fine. You be careful you don’t do something stupid, _Katara_.” She said this while turned right at Kanto, before making her point even more clear by pointing straight at him behind her friend’s back.

“We’ll be fine, Toph,” Kanto managed to say before she left the room. That left him alone with Katara. At least _she_ couldn’t sense lies.

“Does this hurt at all, um…?”

“Li.” Kanto lied.

“Li, is this too much pressure?”

“No, it’s alright.”

“So how did you end up as you are?” Katara moved her hands to work on his abdomen, and only then did he feel the slightest bit of that pain she was talking about.

“I was negotiating a business deal and things got heated. I’m not proud to say, I may have resorted to some cheap insults, but I had no idea the guy would, or could… do this.”

“That’s awful.”

“Tell me, how’s it looking for now, Doc?”

“Oh, you don’t have to… I’m not really a doctor,” Katara said, yet smiled wide like he’d just given her a string of compliments.

“Really?” He leaned into it. “Because just with the last five minutes you’re giving every doctor I ever saw a serious run for their money.”

Katara smiled even wider at that, before asking: “So you and the Chief know each other?”

“Not really.”

“You called her Toph.”

_Shit. Shit. Shit!_

“We used to work together. A long time ago.” Kanto made an effort to smile to cement the lie.

“Oh, so you’re an officer?”

“No, no… More or a consultant, really.” He made eye contact then and caught her narrowing her eyes at him briefly.

Oh, fuck. She did not buy that for some reason. _Fuck_ , he promised Toph he could handle it.

Here he was thinking he could get a few fun facts about Lin out of this woman, not expecting in the slightest he’d have to be playing the defensive.

“So what kind of business—” she was interrupted.

“Sorry to interrupt, I don’t usually do this, but could I ask just one question about the Day of Sozin’s Comet? Now that I have you here…” There was no way she’d pass that up. All those hero types were like that. They were always their favorite topic. Well, except Toph. She could tell the whole story of them saving the world in three sentences, one of them being _Then I happened_.

“Of course, if it helps you not think of the pain.”

He got about three minutes of talking out of her by asking her to verify she was the one to take down the infamous Princess Azula. She only stopped because Toph came back into the room.

“Well, you two look like you’re having fun,” Toph said, taking her old place by the door.

Of all the possible comebacks to that, Kanto never saw the one that actually came out of Katara’s mouth coming.

“You know, I’ve never actually heard the name _Kanto_ before today.”

“You idiot! You told her?!” Toph exploded.

“He didn’t, you did,” Katara said.

“Wait, how did you _not_ sense it was a lie?” Kanto jumped, then settled down once he remembered his insides were all in a mess.

“I did…” Toph hesitated for a minute. “Because it’s supposed to be a lie. She stacked two lies on top of each other.”

“Oh, that shit’s brilliant.” He had a sudden respect for Katara after that. If she’d simply called him Kanto, Toph would’ve felt she was bluffing. By putting the name Kanto in a sentence that Toph would already deem a lie, she made the perfect disguise for it. But how did she even…

“I’ve known her for way longer.” Katara focused back on her work.

“How did you guess, anyway?” Toph insisted.

“How could I not… He looks like Lin, he says he _used to_ know you and he tried to distract me. Not to mention the way he looks at you…”

“How does he look at me?”

“How do I look at her?”

Katara shook her head. “Toph, did you reach Aang?”

“Yeah, told him everything.”

“Well, not everything.” Kanto cut in only to realize they were both ignoring him.

“So when will he be back?”

“Why’d he be back?” Toph shrugged.

“To help you take out this Yakone person.”

“Yeah, cause Twinkle Toes is big on _taking out_ people.”

“You’ll need his help.”

“I’ll arrest the guy, Glowy Eyes can take his bending when he comes back.”

Kanto didn’t dare weigh in, but the only reason he came to talk to Toph was to protect her from possibly being outmatched for the first time in her life and, by extension, protect his daughter from losing her mother.

“Mom, I’m hungry!” A young girl’s voice could be heard from somewhere in the building.

“Toph, would you mind feeding Kya?” Katara asked.

“I would mind! What’s she like, sixteen now?”

“Twelve. And I can’t stop now, we’re at a crucial point in the process. Do me a favor, please?”

“Mom!” Kya continued calling, this time sounding like she’s closer.

“Lin’s eight and she can feed herself and her sister.” Toph smiled with just a hint of smugness.

“ _Can_ or _has to_?”

“Well, I sure as shit won’t do you any favors now…” Toph leaned back on the door.

“Fine.” Katara shrugged. “But if you don’t, she’ll come in here and ask what’s going on. And I don’t lie to my children.”

Toph muttered a string of curses under her breath, then opened the door and slammed it after herself, leaving Kanto once again alone with Katara.

“That got heated.” He folded his hands under his head. “Just so you know, she doesn’t like keeping secrets from you. Deep inside, she’s probably relieved now. _Really_ deep inside…”

Katara didn’t acknowledge his words in any way, she acted as if his wounds were the only thing she could perceive.

“Oh, I get it… I’m the guy who left your friend now. I’m the bad guy.”

“You hurt her.” She said like he somehow could’ve missed that. “And you left Lin.”

“Look, I know you don’t know me, but believe me, I do have a good reason for being away.”

Katara scoffed, accidentally moving her hands from the wounds for a moment, causing all the pain to flood back to Kanto’s gut.

“Fuck!” He jerked. “Easy, Doc, damn!”

“You know who has a good reason? My father who had to fight in the Hundred Year War, and my husband who keeps this world together. I sincerely doubt you—”

“You don’t know me.”

She was right... She had no right to say it, but she was right…

“Neither does your daughter.” She sighed. “I had to get Toph away from here to tell you this, but it looks to me like you’re still taking advantage of her even though you have no role in their life anymore. And I don’t like that. I won’t allow that.”

That bit about his inexistent _role_ in their lives struck gold. Or rather, it struck some deep and dark place inside Kanto that exploded on contact.

“I came to find her half-dead to warn— You know what… Fuck this!” He sat up, then waved her hands away. “Get the fuck off me!”

He got to his feet, most of the pain returning in an instant. Then he hobbled out of the room and towards the exit. As he walked, his strength seemed to return to him, so he was soon walking at his usual pace.

“Wait!” Katara followed.

“What’s going on here?” Toph came into the hallway too.

“He’s leaving before I’m done with him.”

“Well, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” Katara defended herself, before yelling back at Kanto. “You could die if you leave!”

“You could die if I stay!”

Toph held her friend back after they heard that.

“How’re you gonna get off the island?” Toph asked.

“I’ll swim.”

**oooooooooo**

**_20 years after Lin_ **

Kanto, as a young man, would’ve probably been excited to get old had someone told him that he would at one point own so much property he sometimes forgot a place belonged to him until he stepped foot inside. It probably was exciting at first, but tonight watching the bartender go into shock after recognizing him, made him want to turn around and leave. He couldn’t though, he had a meeting here.

So he watched the chubby woman clear out the people from _his_ booth. He probably sat there last time, he couldn’t remember, but the woman seemed sure. The guests were pretty angry about being relocated until they saw who was to take their place. No one argued with the Boss. At least not for very long. They cleared out so fast, one of them left a hat.

Kanto plopped himself down in the booth, put the hat on his head and started puffing smoke when something, or rather someone, caught his eye. Oh, to be young and so, so stupid…

One of the two young idiots sitting at the bar was named Joong, that he was sure of. They both worked for him, he was sure of that too, but then again, who didn’t these days?

Kanto stood up reluctantly and walked up to the boys from the back as they laughed about something. Instead of a greeting he grabbed both of their hairs and stood in between their chairs. They went quiet and serious in an instant.

“Let’s play a little game of _True or False_ , why don’t we… I run the Terra Triad. True or false?”

“True.”

“True, Boss.” They answered reluctantly.

“Good… You work for the Terra Triad, ergo you work for me.”

“True, Boss.”

“True, Sir.”

“See, boys, you’re very good at this game…” He tightened his grip on their hair and turned their heads in the direction of the dance floor. “That piss-drunk, underaged girl there dancing is Suyin Beifong. True or false?”

“T— True.”

“True.”

“She came here with you.”

“Yeah, true.”

“True, Boss.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me with this shit!” He shoved them both forward and let go of them. “Are you a fucking idiot, Joong?”

“No, Boss.”

“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

“No, Boss.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing to me, Joong?!” Kanto turned to check if Suyin could hear them, but she remained at a reasonable distance. “What’s the Platinum Rule of our triad, huh? How does it go?” Kanto turned to Not-Joong.

“Um… Don’t…” He coughed to fix the pitch of his voice. “Don’t fuck with the Beifongs.”

“One more time, both of you.”

“Don’t fuck with the Beifongs,” the boys repeated in unison.

“And I mean that in every possible meaning of the word.” He turned to Joong. “Do you know why it’s not the _Golden_ Rule?”

Joong shrugged.

“Because platinum, quite like my rule, cannot be bent.” He gave each of the boys another smack on the top of the head. “The Platinum Rule is the only thing keeping this triad standing, just like the Law is the only thing keeping Toph Beifong from ending our little club. It would only take one incident… One! For her to make things personal and end us, her way. That’s why we don’t…”

“Fuck with the Beifongs?” Joong tried.

“We’re sorry, Boss.” The other one added. “She looked eighteen and she asked us to—”

“Shut up, she’s fucking fourteen… Spirits!” Kanto sighed. “I’ll take care of her this time, but there will not be a next time. Do you understand?”

“But, Boss, she asked us to find her a job with us. She wanted to talk to you,” said Joong.

“Was I not clear?” He said through his teeth. “I’ll get rid of her tonight and if I ever see her back in the Shades for any reason, I will blame you two.”

Kanto didn’t wait for confirmation from them, he just walked over to Suyin on the dance floor. She was just in the middle of a spin, but his presence distracted her enough to fall onto the floor and start laughing hysterically.

“Can I help you, Lady Beifong?” He extended a hand and she took it.

“Lady Beifong is my grandmother. I’m Su.” She grinned, then twisted like she was about to throw up on the floor, then at the last second, didn’t.

“Your friends said you wanted to talk to me.”

“To you? Why would I wanna… Oh, I know. You’re the Chef. You… You have my job. No, you’ll give me a job.”

“We can talk about that, but after I call someone to get you. We can radio your mother to come pick you up, or your sister maybe.” He was already leading her towards the exit.

“No, no, she’ll be so mad!” Su moved quickly away from him and almost tripped over a chair.

“I’m sure your mother will under—”

“No, Lin. Lin’s gonna kill me…” Su staggered through the door to the street outside. “Mom doesn’t care. She wouldn’t even come.”

“I’m sure she will.”

“No, I’ll go alone, I’m fine.” She continued down the street in the wrong direction.

“Wait, Su, I’ll… I guess, I’ll take you then.”

It took Kanto five more minutes of convincing to get her into his car, which was way too easy. Toph really should teach her daughter not to go into a car with a stranger under any circumstances. It pained him to imagine someone else, someone worse, from the Shades getting lucky and coming across Toph’s kid just like that.

“How did you know where I live?” Su asked, then immediately forgot about the question.

“Okay, off you go in.” Kanto waved towards the house. “Nice meeting you, Su.”

“Did I know you?” She asked, suddenly staring at him. “Before, I mean…”

“No, I think you just need some rest now.” He gestured to the house again.

Su finally seemed to get what he wanted because she struggled out of the car and then staggered towards the house. About a half of the way there, she stumbled and fell down, her fall shaking the earth since she wasn’t really in control of her bending.

“Okay, easy there.” He got out of the car and with one of her hands around his neck lifted her to her feet. They moved like that into the house. Toph told him he wasn’t allowed to have contact with Lin, she never said anything about Suyin. She’d probably still kill him, so he tried to be as quiet as possible. His seismic sense told him Toph was upstairs, asleep and the only person inside.

He laid the now almost unconscious teenager on the couch, then rolled her to her side. He was just about to leave when he heard she was not only awake, but crying. That wasn’t life threatening, he was aware, but he couldn’t just leave then. He hadn’t turned on any of the lights by that point, he’d been doing everything with his seismic sense, so he sat down on the floor next to Su’s head in complete darkness.

“Suyin,” He didn’t know this girl any better than his own daughter, so it made sense in a way that just the fact she was related to Toph made him want to do anything and everything to protect her. “Did something happen before I found you?”

“Lin’s gonna be so mad…” She cried. “Lin’s gonna hate me.”

_Oh…_

“That’s impossible.”

“You don’t know her.”

“I know older siblings…” He sighed. “She probably will get angry, but only because she’s so afraid of something happening to you. Every time she yells at you, she’s saying how much she loves you. And if she lost you… Well, she’d just be lost too.” _Like me._ “Okay?”

“Okay.” The girl managed to mumble before drifting off.

Kanto was finally ready to leave when he sensed footsteps going for the front door.

“Goodnight, Tenzin.” He heard someone say and the porch light went on. He ran for the kitchen. Toph had showed him how to negate his presence for other seismic sense users and he sure as shit hoped he remembered some of that.

The door opened and closed. The light went on in the living room.

“Su? Su!” That had to be his daughter’s voice. “Mom, come down!”

Kanto did not need an awake Toph right now. She’d know him as soon as she put her feet on the floor. He should’ve gone through the window immediately, but something, curiosity maybe, kept him there, still as a statue. That was the closest he’d been to his daughter in two years.

“Su, say something! Come on!”

“You love me,” came the girl’s voice.

“Get serious, can you stand? Where the fuck were you at this time of night? And who in their right mind would serve you drinks?!”

“Lin, stop making a racket or I’ll arrest you!” Toph appeared on the staircase.

“Where was Su?” Lin’s voice came stricter than a prosecutor’s.

“How the fuck should I know?”

“You’re her mother! She’s blackout drunk, we’re lucky she even found her way home.”

“A friend took me,” Su informed them.

Kanto was suddenly very glad he hadn’t shared his name.

“See, she’s got friends that care.” Toph added. “Now what do you want from me?”

“A little bit of parenting maybe, for fuck’s sake…” Kanto felt Lin get Su into a sitting position “I cannot believe this, I step out for one fucking date in two years and this happens. She could have alcohol poisoning.”

“She’s breathing, she’ll be fine.”

“Su, I need you to answer me… Did you take anything else, except alcohol?”

“I went dancing,” Su said, convinced that was a valid answer.

“I’m talking powders, maybe a weird cigarette or a pill?” Lin still remained deadly serious.

“That’s right, Linny, give her ideas for next time…” Toph chuckled and walked down from the stairs. “So she got plastered, so what? It’s normal. It’s not like it won’t happen again…”

“It won’t on my watch.” Lin helped Su to her feet. “I’m taking her to sleep it off in her room, and I guess I’ll have to be the one to keep an eye on her till morning.”

“Lin, I feel awful…” Su managed.

“Well, you should!”

“No, I really…” Su stumbled, fell to her knees and started throwing up.

“There, there, baby…” Toph stroked Su’s hair.

“Mama, I don’t wanna drink anymore!”

“It’s okay, baby.” Toph sighed. “You see, Lin, she’s learned her lesson.”

Lin huffed, then turned toward the kitchen, reminding Kanto he wasn’t really supposed to be there eavesdropping.

“No, Lin, I’ll clean it up, you take her upstairs.” Toph said to try and stop her from going into the kitchen.

“Okay, let’s go, Su.” Lin started retreating, which made Kanto relax, but after just a brief moment he heard: “Mom, wait.” Then Lin stomped her foot. “There’s someone in the house.”

Hearing that Kanto left all pretense and ran for the window. Lin was in the kitchen a second too late to spot him. As he sneaked away, he could hear Toph lie about not sensing anything.

Those few sentences he heard from Lin might not have seemed like a lot, but it brought him to a realization. Since she was named after Ling, Kanto had always imagined his daughter was like his brother. He also raised Ling almost on his own so it made sense that he couldn’t imagine Lin being any other way. But that night he got it. She was responsible for more than she could handle, older than her years and she acted like she carried the world on her shoulders. She wasn’t like Ling at all, she was just like Kanto. A younger sibling to take care of, a need for seeking justice… It was all right there.

Kanto went home happy that night, knowing his daughter grew up into such a responsible young woman, but also full of regret since he played no part in getting her there.

**oooooooooo**

Kanto might have believed that swift escape to be the end of that particular story, but in about two days he was walking to his car when…

“Chef!” A familiar voice. “Wait up!”

No, he wasn’t imagining it, it really was Suyin Beifong. In the Shades, again. In front of his restaurant this time.

“Lady Beifong.”

“Joong and Tu don’t wanna talk to me anymore,” she said like it was completely in context.

“What?” They had to be the two idiots from the bar that night.

“I know you did something to them.” It appeared that accusatory tone was a family trait.

“Maybe you’re just not as popular as you think you are, kid.”

“No, they’re my friends. They wouldn’t stop talking to me unless you threatened them somehow...”

_You better believe I threatened them._

“Cute theory,” he said and continued walking.

“So I’ve come to threaten _you_.” She barred his way.

He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at that. It was the way she said it…

“Has it started yet, or?” He grinned down at her.

“No...” She crossed her hands. “First, I have to try and convince you.”

Daughter of a diplomat, through and through…

“Your daddy teach you that? Because your mommy sure didn’t…” He smiled as he walked around her to get to his car. “Too bad I’m not playing.”

When she followed him in silence, he should’ve known something was off. And it was. One of his tires was slashed. That little…

“I had no choice. Now you have to listen to me explain why you should allow me to join the triad. Why you _need_ me in the triad…”

“There is one thing you didn’t think of, though.” He flexed his hand then and the car’s trunk opened.

“You’re a metalbender?”

Kanto winked and got to work, waving his hands to levitate the spare tire from the trunk and place the slashed one in its place. It all took just a few moments, put now that he had to attach the new tire to the car, he was having difficulties. He couldn’t seem to place everything just right, so it’d fall in place.

“Precision not your thing?” She smirked up at him. “Why don’t you let me then?”

He tried one more time, but with his technique it was only a matter of time when he’d break something. So he let her have control and in just a few seconds, Su had the tire in place, every bolt tightened and accounted for.

“Impressive.”

“Did you know I can metalbend a key to fit any lock?” she asked then, admiring her work with the tire. “It’s faster than lockpicking, it could prove invaluable…”

“Look, kid… You tried your little trick, all very entertaining, but it’s time to go _home_.” This seemed to make her extremely mad.

“Not until you take back what you said to Joong and Tu!” She gritted her teeth, then took a fighting stance. “I’ll… I’ll fight you.”

This kid… She was persistent, he had to give her that. Not like the two street rats were worth it. They’d probably already moved on to a different girl by then. Kanto knew he had to get rid of her soon, before Toph somehow found a way to blame him for the fact Suyin kept finding him somehow.

“I’m not gonna fight you, Su. Let me take you home, you don’t belong here…”

“My friends are here so I do belong here.” She broke her stance to shove his shoulder back. “Now fight me!”

He’d never thought about how much trouble a person could get into for having Toph’s attitude, but not her skill.

“If you insist…” He rotated his foot a few degrees and sent Su flying backwards to the ground with an earth wall. He didn’t even have to try. Su, however, looked like she’d done everything in her power to stay up and still got thrown back.

“I wasn’t ready,” she assured him as she laid in the pile of rubble on the side of the street.

Kanto still found it kind of endearing. He was probably supposed to be happy his daughter never had anything to do with any triad, but deep down he wished she’d come to seek him out like this. Or for any other reason.

“Had enough?” He walked over and extended a hand to help her up. She took it reluctantly.

“I didn’t know we were starting…” Her face suggested she was no stranger to being bested in earthbending, and she made no further effort to attack him.

“How about I take you home again, Su?” Kanto tried to nudge her forward with his hand, but she struggled.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She moved aside, but he tried again. “I don’t want you to touch me!”

She was probably taught this was a good strategy, and anywhere else it probably was.

“Oh, I see… But let me warn you, Lady Beifong, you scream _Rape_ in this neighborhood and people are gonna gather, not to help, but to join in.”

The young girl visibly winced at the thought and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. That was all she was, still. Just a girl. Kanto felt bad for being so blunt.

“Look, Suyin,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, I can’t give you what you want. I can get you home safely, though.” This time he didn’t touch her, instead he opened the car door for her, and she reluctantly got in.

“You suck,” Su said as soon as he got into the driver’s seat.

He chuckled and started driving out of the Shades.

“Why does your car smell like crab puffs?”

It was the first thing Su had said in five full minutes.

“Because, before you _attacked me_ , I was bringing some food back from the restaurant.”

“Is it any good?”

“I’ll tell you what, you can have some if you let me tell you one thing, without interrupting me.”

She agreed with a nod, and he waited for a red light before reaching for the back seat and handing her a take-out container. She eyed in for a quick moment, then stuffed a whole crab puff into her mouth.

“How is this so good?” she asked with her mouth full.

“We have a decent cook.”

“Decent? He’s amazing!”

“I’ll be sure to tell him that. Can I talk now?” he asked and got another nod. “You do know that you can never pull something like this with another triad leader?”

“But I—”

“Didn’t I say no interruptions?” He watched her give up and get back to the crab puffs. “I’m telling you, you can never go and pick a fight with another triad boss. Or get in their car. Or eat their food. They all hate your mother, you would end up ransomed or worse.”

“You didn’t do that… You brought me home that night.”

“I’m the exception, not the rule, Su.”

“Why?”

“I just am.” He couldn’t do better than that, without breaking his promise to Toph.

She sighed. “But I wouldn’t even have to do any of that if you’d just left my friends alone. What is so wrong with me spending time with them? And no matter what you think, I would be very useful to a triad.”

How could he make her understand?

“I’m not saying you’re not useful, I’m just saying you don’t—”

“What? _Belong here_? You said that already, it’s still stupid.”

Kanto took a deep breath then, before speaking again.

“Why do you even want to be in the triad?”

Su considered it for a second, lowered the food container to her lap, then looked straight at him.

“Because… You guys are free. Joong and Tu are free. You’re free. And you’re not bad people, you’re just brave enough to do whatever you want.”

Kanto didn’t reply at first, instead he brought the car to a stop on the side of the road. They were almost out of the Shades.

“Let’s get a few things straight… Joong and Tu are idiots. I am not only a bad man, but possibly the worst man you’ve ever been in the same room with. And none of us are free, in any meaning of the word.”

“You’re just saying that because—”

“No, Suyin, I know what I’m talking about.” She turned away from him. “Look at me.” He waited until she did. “I’m the most powerful man in the Shades, while you’re a rich noble girl, and that gives you more freedom now than I ever had or could ever get.” He paused there briefly. “It’s why we triads do the horrible things we do… Because we want what you already have.”

Su’s eyes widened as she carefully took in every word that left Kanto’s mouth.

“The excitement of it all wears off once the first person you cared about gets killed, and then what? Then what, Su? You think it’ll be worth it?”

“Why do you even care what I do with my life? You don’t even know me…”

That was true, technically, but what she didn’t know was that when Kanto looked at her young, dumb, overconfident face, he saw his brother’s young, dumb, overconfident face. He saw Ling enjoying the triad life because it made him feel like he belonged, only for all of it to end in a pool of blood on the floor.

“I’ve lost every single member of my family to this life so when I see what you’re doing I can’t not try to stop you. Su, if you care about your family, about your future, your conscience or your life, never go back to my part of the city. Never. Pretend like we don’t exist.”

She was silent after that, and he took a deep breath before continuing the drive. Su sat by him still as a statue, chewing crab puffs in eerie silence. He stopped the car on her street, but didn’t dare go all the way to the house. She didn’t go out on her own.

“It can’t be like that. It just can’t.” She stared down at her feet.

“I’m afraid it is.”

“I just want my friends back.”

“I know, but believe me, when you’re all grown up, you’ll look back and be thankful I ended that here when I did. It’s better for everyone like that.”

“Whatever, _Chef_ … I’m off your back, you can relax finally,” she blurted out, not really looking his way, before hurrying out of the vehicle. She was about to slam the door when he stopped it at the last second.

“Kid?”

“Yeah?” She looked up, no longer angry, just sad.

“You get into trouble, you say you know me.” He winked. “But don’t get into trouble.”

**oooooooooo**

**_22 years after Lin_ **

She walked with such force and purpose he could sense her coming from the other side of the docks.

“What were you thinking?!” Toph asked, continuing not to be bothered by the prospect of being caught.

“Had _nothing_ to do with it. Nothing.”

“Last I checked you lead the Terra Triad. Those guys work for you!”

“That doesn’t mean I told them to bring the Chief’s daughter to a robbery! You know I was never quite that stupid!”

“Well, you left me, Kanto, so you must’ve been once.”

“I don’t think you wanna go down this road that’d make you responsible for everything your cops do.”

She wanted to say something back, it was obvious, but she bit her lip and held it back instead.

“Look, I already talked to those idiots about it when I caught them drinking with Suyin a few years back.” Kanto explained, since she never really asked him about what he was doing in her house that night. “I told them your daughter was much too good to be hanging out with the likes of—”

“Damn straight.”

“And I told them to stay the fuck away, but do you think they’d listen? No! Not a fucking word I said!” Kanto kicked air pretending it was a certain young idiot’s head.

“Well, if any of yours every try to take advantage of—”

“Excuse me?! Advantage?!” He chuckled. “She came to my guys begging to get in on the action. Same thing years ago… They shouldn’t’ve said _yes_ , they’re weak, but Suyin’s the one always coming back to satisfy that weird noble girl curiosity about the less clean side of life.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, you used to, that’s why we’re here, doing this.”

She slapped him. He let her.

Lin got hurt in all this, he should’ve prevented it. Protected her.

“Just keep your people well away from my Su. She’s out of the city now, it shouldn’t be that hard.” Toph sighed. “I’d also like your help arresting those idiots that helped her. I had to scrap the report and let them go.”

“That I can’t do, I’m afraid. But don’t sweat, they’ve been taken care of.”

“Meaning?” She wasn’t letting go.

“Meaning this is one of those occasions when you don’t wanna know.” He appreciated that she’d always understand without him having to actually say what he did.

And understand him she did, he could tell by the way her face twisted in disbelief.

“You…? Who the fuck are you now?!” There was such betrayal in her voice, still. “I’m okay with letting you kill the occasional serial killer, human trafficker or deranged triad boss…”

“You bring me their files.”

“Spirits protect me if Aang ever hears me say this, but the world’s better without them in it. But this? Kanto, they’re kids, they would’ve been out in six months!”

“It’s six months for the theft, maybe, but it’s a shallow grave for disobeying _me_!” Kanto could not remember if he’d ever seen such fury in her eyes. “You should be happy. It might give Suyin some idea of what it looks like when you actually work for a triad boss.”

Just like that, all that anger disappeared from Toph’s face. She took a step closer to him, her face turned up to his, and for a short moment he thought she was about to kiss him. Then she raised her right hand and knocked on his forehead a few times with force.

“You see mine and Ling’s Kanto in there, be sure to wake him up, I’ve wanted to catch up with him for years,” she said, then swiftly turned and started walking away.

“Is Lin okay?”

She stopped in her tracks.

“She’s fine.” Toph sighed. “At least that’s what Katara tells me. Lin’s not talking to me.”

“Cause of the report?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t approve.”

“You did the right thing with that. Lin will see it too. Give her some time.”

“I… I’ve been told there’s something with her face too.”

“I saw it in the paper. Yeah.”

“Is it bad?”

“I’ve seen worse. It’s probably a pretty painful reminder, though.”

“Yeah, she’s not speaking to Su either.”

“It’ll pass. She’ll cool off. You’re her family.”

“Lin? Cool off?” Toph snorted. “That kid’s been ready to take on the world for a decade now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I really liked the idea of Kanto turning Su away from crime, but since I’m trying to stay somewhat canon-compliant I had to make it that he wasn’t 100% effective in his lecture.
> 
> Next chapter will be the last one.


	7. Some Kind of Dad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I cannot believe I’m done with this... Apologies, it took me an extra day, but I didn’t want to rush it.

**_32 years after Lin’s born_ **

It was a historic occasion. Kanto was about to enter the police station without first being arrested. With and impressive assortment of knives and all his best metalbenders behind him, he was ready. He spared one last look towards the west of the city, towards what used to be the Shades, the neighborhood where he’d lived for decades before Chief Beifong cleaned up the place.

It happened. His triad, the Terra Triad was the last one with enough power for this to matter. Lin, his daughter, had sent all of the others running, hiding across the city, the same people who once made the Shades their own personal kingdom.

Kanto pushed open the door and strolled inside the station like he worked there, while his people followed, drawing out swords or knives that they could in the blink of an eye send flying towards anyone inside.

“The backup’s in place, then, Boss?” a fifth ring girl asked him.

“Everything’s going according to the plan.”

Everyone working at the station was starting to take notice, and the receptionist was downright terrified as Kanto strolled closer to her. He ignored it, instead climbed onto her desk and spread his arms, getting the rest of the room to notice him. Everyone went silent. Some of the officers looked like they were beginning to remember who he was.

“Attention! You are surrounded. There is nowhere for you to go. There is nothing you can do.” He looked around the room. “Now, get your hands up!”

The police officers obeyed, somewhat reluctantly, now definitely recognizing him.

Then Kanto turned to his people.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking to them.” The faces they made were almost worth this whole thing. “Come on, get them up!”

“But, Boss, you said the backup—”

“I lied.” Kanto smirked, before glancing over his shoulder at the officers who were all extremely confused. “I’m Kanto, Leader of the Terra Triad and I’m here to surrender.” He raised his hands. “I’ve got stories to tell, fingers to point, names to name and a whistle to blow. And I’ve brought my associates.” As promised, he pointed at his men. “So what is it you people say… Seize them?”

“I say that.” Lin said from the back of the room. “Seize them.”

This snapped all the officers back to attention and they started advancing on Kanto’s associates. Lin, however, handcuffed him personally.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she whispered as she was leading him away.

“Keeping my word.”

“I’m not my mother.” She tightened his cuffs. “If you think I’ll just let you walk away after the stunt you—”

“I knew what would be waiting for me here.”

**oooooooooo**

Kanto chose to sit on the floor even though his cell had a perfectly good cot. He just had to keep checking. Intellectually, he’d known the Avatar could take people’s bending, fuck, he’d been in this prison before killing people who’d had their bending taken. He also knew that was probably what they’d do to him as a metabender once he’s caught. Only, knowing something and believing it would happen were not the same thing.

The kept trying to reach the earth, listen, move it, quake, but it didn’t answer. It was like trying to flip someone off with a hand that had been cut away.

“Our accommodations suit your needs?” Lin appeared by the bars of his cell somehow. Of course, she could sneak up to him, anyone could now that he couldn’t use his seismic sense. Toph would be laughing in his face right about now, if she were here. Fuck, he was sure there was a chance she’d come back from wherever she was just to rub it in.

“Yeah. Thanks, Chief.” Immediately after his arrest Kanto was stripped of his bending and transferred to a special part of the prison away from the general population. It was a place reserved for prisoners the others wanted to kill really badly and was also where he found and executed his former boss. That was a cosmic joke if he ever heard one…

At least his daughter was here. The new, and, whether anyone dared admit it or not, more effective Chief Beifong, stood in front of his cell sipping coffee and staring at him intently.

“I always wondered… Does it hurt when the Avatar takes it away?”

“If I say _Yes_ , are you going to say _Good_?”

She frowned. Why? Why was his first instinct these days to be an ass?

“Sorry.” He got to his feet and took a few steps to the bars so that he was directly facing her. “No, it doesn’t. It just feels… Empty, I guess.”

He realized then that she didn’t need to be there, the Chief didn’t at least. So then it must be that she was there as Lin, as his daughter…

“I’ll live.” He added, seeing her struggling to find the right words. It didn’t help her find them.

And he couldn’t blame her. It was awkward. It was weird. It was upsetting. It hurt to talk to each other but there was also some pull that made them want to try.

He smiled then, because he realized her face was just as genuinely expressive as her mother’s. And at that moment, Lin’s was saying _I’m sorry I had to do this to you_ , even though her job and her pride would never let her form the words.

“Why’d you do it, Kanto?” she said instead.

“I promised you I would if you cleaned up the Shades. Which you did.”

“Don’t give me that… If this is part of some scheme to—”

Kanto interrupted her with a chuckle.

“Believe me, I wish I was half the criminal mastermind you and your mother think I am. It’d make things easier for me.” He sighed. “You want to know why I turned myself in? I’m tired of fighting, Lin.”

“I didn’t think we were—”

“Not with you, just… In general. I’m so tired of fighting, I’ve been doing it since I was a kid and I haven’t stopped once. I’m tired, and I’m old, and I wanna spent the time I have left close to my daughter.”

That left her quiet again for a little while. He let her think and didn’t speak.

“And for that, you gave up your earthbending? For a slim chance that I— That your daughter would even wanna talk to you despite everything?” She took another sip. “That’s stupid.”

“Yeah, see, not a mastermind. I am stupid. Stupid for not doing it sooner.” This seemed to surprise her, yet it was a hundred percent genuine. When he found out he had a daughter he had a year of leading the triad to answer for, but the worst he could’ve gotten for that was… What? 20 years… That seemed so much then, an eternity, yet by not turning himself in, he sentenced himself to 32 years of violence, failure and being alone.

“I have to inspect the prison.” She blurted after a few awkward moments of silence passed.

“Of course, Chief, I get it. Nice seeing you, though.” Kanto’s throat tightened at the thought that after she walked through that door and left this place, there was a very good chance he’d never see her again. And there was absolutely no chance he’d ever see Toph again.

In that moment, watching his adult, successful, well-adjusted daughter possibly for the last time, he would’ve taken it all back if he could.

“Every week, I meant,” she added.

“What?”

“As the Chief, I have to pick a random day to inspect the state of the prison every week. New rule since they’ve had a few incidents.”

“People being stabbed or worse?”

“Or worse.” She looked down. “What I’m saying is… And I can’t believe I’m saying it… I’ll be here once every week, and they need some time to get their reports ready for me, so I’ll have some spare time as I wait.”

“So, you’re saying… I’ll be seeing you? Every week?” He managed to keep himself somewhat collected even though inside he was jumping with joy.

“Yeah, you know… If you want.”

“I can think of nothing I’d want more.” He smiled.

“Not even your bending back?”

“I’ve had decades with my bending. I’ve had precious few moments with you.”

“Ain’t exactly my fault, is it?”

“Got me there…”

There was a silence and Lin used it to turn towards the door. He knew now she planned on coming back, but still he didn’t want her to leave yet.

“And Lin…” His words made her turn back. “Thank you. I know firsthand what it’s like having a no-good, lowlife, triad trash dad, and I have to say you’re handling it with a lot of patience.”

“So it’s a legacy thing?” she teased.

“Oh, yeah, definitely… No posh last name from my side of the family, no vast wealth, no worldwide fame, but we do have a long history of truly useless dads. And now I did my part!” He laughed bitterly. “You know, it’s funny, you go through your whole life going _Not gonna be like him, not gonna be like him, not gonna be like him_ over and over in your head and then you turn around one day and you’re…” He gestured to her. “You’re him.”

She looked like she didn’t know how to respond again. He couldn’t blame her.

“Anyone else from your side of the family I should know about?” she finally asked.

“No. It’s just me. Has been for decades…” It came out sadder than he meant it to. “Your grandparents have been dead since before I met Toph and my brother…”

“Mom mentioned something about him.”

“I’ll tell you about him one day if you’d like.” Kanto sat back down on the floor. “But fair warning, it’s not a very happy story… I swear, Lin, if my side of the family had anything other than a history of bad parenting, extreme poverty and crime, I’d share it with you.”

“Extreme poverty?” She asked, taking off her armor.

“Yeah, Ba Sing Se, Lower Ring. Your mother didn’t tell you?”

“No offense, but she doesn’t exactly want to talk about you. Ever.” She sat down opposite him.

“Makes sense. Not like I’d brag about knowing me.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, he saw a pang of pity cross his daughter’s features.

“So Lower Ring… So what? Food-insecure?”

“Oh, yeah… Big time. I used to joke mine wasn’t just a food-insecure household, it was a kitchen-insecure household…” He looked up and found her confused. “I lived with my mother who was a drug addict, so it wasn’t unusual for me to come home and find some of the furniture gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry.” He promised himself he’d just try and keep the conversation pleasant, but he couldn’t wait. Couldn’t hold the apology back any longer. “You’re a full adult now, you might sympathize this time, or you might not… I just wanted you to know that when I found out about you, all I wanted was to give you your best chance. And that was definitely not with me and all the baggage I bring with me.”

Just as he finished there was a knock on the door to the stairwell. Their time was up, she’d have to go. He watched Lin get up, bend her armor back on and walk to the exit.

“I’m glad we’re talking now,” she said, then disappeared through the door.

Kanto couldn’t be happier. Even this late in their lives, maybe he could still be _something_ to his daughter.

**oooooooooo**

**_34 years after Lin’s born_ **

Kanto was sitting on his cot, reading a book when a young person ran to his cell in a big hurry. He glanced at them once, then got back to his book, not sure if he’d seen a boy or a girl, but sure that he didn’t know them either way.

“Are you Kanto?”

A girl, definitely.

“Who wants to know?” He flipped a page.

“That means you are…” The strange girl’s voice burned with rage. “You killed my father!”

“Did I?” He kept his gaze on the book.

“Yes, you monster!” She bended the bars of his cell apart with great effort, then stepped inside. “He worked for you, his name was—”

“Let me stop you right there, kid… I’m not gonna remember him. Not his name, not his face, not even the horrible thing I did to him. I’m just not.” This seemed to shock her. “So let me save us both some time… How do you want it to go down?”

She was silent for a few long moments before muttering a shy, “What?”

“You loved your father, you’ve come to avenge him, yes?” He closed the book, then got to his feet holding it in his right hand.

The girl nodded eventually, getting visibly more confused by the second.

“Then you have no choice but to kill me, so how do you want it? Huh, kid? How does it look in your dreams? Am I on my knees, on my feet, am I begging, crying, apologizing? I don’t think I can cry, but I’ll do my best.”

“I…”

“Up to me, then.” He stood in front of her with spread arms and closed his eyes. “Do it.”

“I… You’re not even gonna fight back?”

Kanto opened his eyes. “Oh, right… There really is no honor in killing an unarmed old man… I can try and fight back if you want, but I have no bending, it’ll make little difference.”

The kid raised a hand then, as if to do a bending move, but stopped. Tears brimmed her eyes.

“First time?” he asked.

“I’ll do it!” the girl snapped.

“I believe you will. And don’t worry, every time after that it only gets easier.”

“This is the only time.”

Kanto chuckled. “Sure, kid. Good luck with that.”

“I won’t do it again!”

“If you say so…” Kanto looked to the side.

“I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work. I’ll do it!”

“Woah, hey, I believe you, Hotshot.” He couldn’t help but smile using it on someone else. “Anyone who has the guts to break in here and try to kill someone under Chief Beifong’s nose must be very sure of themselves…”

This amplified the doubt already ringing through the girl’s head and Kanto knew he wouldn’t get a better moment. He threw his book at the light hanging on the hallway celling, leaving the two of them in almost complete darkness.

In the light, her bending was a huge advantage, in the dark the gap narrowed. Not everyone was taught by Toph Beifong herself. Kanto didn’t have his bending to sense from the earth anymore, but he could still listen which was more than she was doing. He had to immobilize her limbs, it stopped mediocre benders just fine, but as soon as he grabbed her hands she knew exactly where he was. A wall of earth threw him back, or at least he thought it was a wall of earth. In complete darkness all he felt was blunt impact, and flying into the metal bars of the cell.

He called for his bending, knowing it was no use, but still trying, feeling. Nothing.

Then a light shined on the room revealing the girl was ready for a strike to finish him. Before she could move, however, metal cables wrapped around her. Lin came in to secure the girl, only then noticing Kanto was on the floor.

“Fine. I’m just fine, Chief.” He got up forcefully, as not to concern her. It was the weirdest thing, even during the fight, he was more afraid of being a burden and a worry to his daughter, than actually getting hurt.

**oooooooooo**

**_37 years after Lin’s born_ **

“You punch like your mother,” Kanto said. “And I mean that as the highest of compliments.”

Lin gave him a small smile as a response to that, before drinking from her water bottle. He, on the other hand, made better use of their break by sitting down and trying to stop the dizziness. He could always call it quits, but that would mean cutting their time together short. It would also mean admitting his daughter could take him in a fight. And he couldn’t let either of those happen, could he now?

They’d started these sparring sessions about a year ago when he complained about not being able to exercise due to his required isolation. She’d lock off the section when she came by, then let him out of his cell and usually absolutely destroy him until he could take no more. It wasn’t hard to guess, that Lin, much like him, had a much easier time being in his company if they didn’t _have to_ talk.

“Ready to go again, old man?” Lin took her fighting stance. He stepped up too, and they were at it again, until Lin accidentally knocked him down with earthbending. “Sorry. Reflex.”

The deal was, she wouldn’t use her bending since he couldn’t, but today she was having particular trouble keeping it back for some reason.

“Time out.” He got himself up, realizing he’d probably be sore for three days after this, not just the usual two. “Lin, are you…? Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean?” She went for the water again.

“Well… I’m no expert on the touchy-feely stuff, but we’ve been sparring for fifteen minutes and you’ve accidentally bended at me what… five times?”

“I haven’t—” She stopped once she remembered all the times she’d lashed out that day. “Well, I’m fine, so… If you wanna stop, we can stop.”

“So there’s nothing bothering you?”

“This conversation is starting to.”

“Okay, okay…” He smirked, then took his fighting stance. A new idea was starting to bring his strength back up, seemingly from nowhere.

Lin swung to hit him rashly, passionately, and he dodged it with ease, returning a punch that actually landed on her face.

“What were you thinking about just now?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She wiped the blood of her lip. “Again.”

“You’re clearly thinking about something.” He walked to the side to drink. “I don’t wanna pry, but I am kind of the perfect person to tell. Who am I gonna blab to?”

“It’s just stupid Tenzin stuff. Nothing really…” She leaned on the wall next to him.

He didn’t say anything to that, just looked ahead and gave her time. In the past few years he’d learned Lin closed up when you tried to interrogate her and spilled secrets only when you appeared to be losing interest.

“He’s been pestering me lately… about having kids.”

“Oh.” He’d hoped it was something he could actually give advice about. Anything he had to say on the topic of good parenting would’ve come out as a joke.

“And I’ve been very straightforward about not wanting anything to do with that business, but the man just won’t take _no_ for an answer. He’s tireless when it comes to badgering me about it.”

“Well, you know what I don’t get? You guys have been a _thing_ for…”

“It’s called a _couple_ , Kanto.”

“Yeah, a couple, for how many years now?”

“More than twenty.”

He knew it was around that long, but hearing it still made it seem unreal. Two decades with a single person… He couldn’t help but wonder if him and Toph would’ve made it that far had he stayed. Probably not. But if they had, they would’ve been coming up on forty soon.

“And in all those years,” he begun. “There was never a good time to discuss this kind of thing?”

“We did talk about it before. I never lied, I always said I didn’t plan on becoming a mother, but I guess, he thought he could love me into changing my mind…”

Kanto chuckled.

“I don’t think that’s ever been done.”

Toph tried to love him into leaving the criminal life behind and well… That didn’t end great. He considered bringing it up then but decided against it. He and Lin got on great recently but brining up her mother always seemed to make it weird again.

“Exactly.” Lin wiped sweat from her forehead. “He didn’t use to be pushy about it. Some days he was even understanding, but then… Then his dad died. That left Tenzin as the only living airbender, and it messed with his head. He’s been impossible ever since.” She sighed deeply. “Listen to me go on and on… Sorry.”

Kanto had never really understood what his daughter saw in that man. He didn’t know Tenzin personally, but he had a good general idea of the man’s political stances from the news and a basic knowledge of airbender values. But in that moment Kanto finally got it. They were both people burdened practically from birth by a legacy bigger than either of them.

He was suddenly very happy to be the son of a drug dealer. No huge shoes to fill there…

“No, I wanna hear it.” Kanto leaned against the wall to and looked up at the celling. “Can I offer my opinion maybe?”

“I’m not really in the mood to hear how my mother also didn’t think she wanted to have kids, but then they changed her life… I’m not her.”

“What are you talking about? Toph wanted kids.”

This made her look over to him.

“Sure, she did…” Lin snorted.

“I’m not kidding. I knew her before… well, obviously.” He gestured to her. “We were dating right around when Tenzin was born. I remember her being excited about it.”

“Mom? Really?”

“Yeah, Toph… Well, she didn’t know a whole lot about kids back then. Only thing she did know was that she wanted a family and that it had to be different from the one her parents started. She just didn’t know how to go about getting that.”

“Well, if anything, I might know a little too much about parenting from Suyin’s childhood. I’m not incompetent, I just don’t…” She huffed. “Why is it that when someone doesn’t want kids, they need a good reason? Shouldn’t you have a good reason for having kids?! Shouldn’t that require being absolutely sure, before you go around making people and ruining their lives?” Her eyes landed on him after she said that. “I didn’t mean you…”

“It’s alright.” He shifted uncomfortably. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. I think yours is a very responsible and mature stance that you have every right to take, and that you shouldn’t let anyone guilt you into changing it.” Kanto flashed his smile despite the burning hot guilt resurfacing in his chest. “Now, you wanna go again, this time imagining I’m Tenzin when you strike?”

“Sure.” She followed him into the middle of the room, but stopped before taking her fighting stance. “I… I think I feel better.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I think I’ve just gotten more emotional support from you in 15 minutes than from my mother in… ever.” She smiled at the silliness of the statement. “Thanks, Kanto.”

“Anytime, kid.”

**oooooooooo**

**_39 years after Lin’s born_ **

Kanto was woken at around 3 in the morning by the sound of metal against metal. Despite his initial fear, it wasn’t another attempt on his life. It was just his daughter, without her armor, standing in the hallway before a hole in the bars to his cell.

“Lin? What’s—”

“Escape.” She said the word like it was an order.

“What? Why?” He got to his feet and only then noticed her eyes were red like she’d been crying. A million guesses as to why flooded his mind all at once. Had someone done something to her? Her mother? Sister? Tenzin? Were they still in danger?

“Go while you can.”

“Lin, I’m not moving a muscle until you tell me what’s happened.”

“I’m about to get fired, so I won’t be able to control how you’re treated. That’s why you need to leave.”

By the way she’d been acting, he would’ve guessed they decided on executing him. But no, this wasn’t about him at all.

“Fired? Why’d you think that?”

“I did something bad,” she said after a pause.

That could’ve meant a whole range of different things with varying levels of severity. Which meant it essentially meant nothing. He could clearly see from the state she was in that something had gone terribly wrong. Luckily, or rather, unluckily, he was no stranger to things going off the rails.

“Okay… Take a deep breath, tell me what happened.”

“We don’t have time, you need to leave now, during shift change!” She bended the metal bars of his cell even further apart so he’d get the message. Kanto knew that it took her going against everything she stood for to do this, disobey all the laws she swore to uphold. It could only mean things were truly serious.

“I’m not leaving you like this. Lin, tell me what the fuck happened out there!”

“I sunk Air Temple Island!” she snapped. “There, I said it… And now, it’s only a matter of time before my own officers arrest me for it.”

“Why would you…? Is Tenzin okay? Did something happen to him?” Kanto couldn’t imagine what kind of extreme grief had to have befallen his strict and stoic daughter for her to lose control in such a way.

“Oh, he’s never been better!” She laughed bitterly to herself. “Spirits, I was stupid! So very stupid to think…” She paced for a few seconds and he let her. Then she turned back to look at him. “We’re done, Tenzin and I.”

“I’m sure it’s not that—”

“He cheated on me! With a woman who was still in diapers when him and I first got together! And then he has the nerve to tell me wants to _try and make it work with Pema_! She’s a child, she’s younger than Su, younger than Izumi’s son, she’s…”

Kanto needed a second to understand fully and when he did, the shock of it froze him in place. He knew he was supposed to feel angry, feel some primal rage towards Tenzin for hurting his daughter in this way, but he didn’t. All he felt listening to her was that hallow ache in his chest that found him whenever he thought about how he ended things with Toph.

“But that’s not even the worst part…” Lin continued talking, pacing around in fury that was slowly melting into sorrow. “The worst part…” Her voice cracked. “The worst part is that it got to me. I lost myself, I… I almost destroyed the Island. Uncle Aang’s island…” Tears broke free from her eyes. “I tried to arrest the girl, I completely lost control over myself. I just wanted to make them…”

“Pay?”

“Feel it. Feel what I felt. See what I felt.” Only then did Lin realize she was crying in front of Kanto, because she swiftly turned from him and walked to sit leaned on a wall. His cell still laid open.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit here and wait until they come and get me,” she said. “You can do what ever you want.” She buried her head in her hands after saying that, but it was obvious she was still crying slightly.

Kanto stepped out of his cell, but didn’t even spare a glance down the hallway towards freedom. He’d made his choice long ago. Lin didn’t look up as he sat right next to her and leaned on the wall. They were both silent for a minute or two, the only sound Lin’s heavy breathing. If it was possible to make someone feel better by sheer force of will, Kanto would’ve done it.

“You want me to have him killed?” he asked.

Lin removed her hands from her face to reveal she was laughing. No matter how sad or bitter the laugh was, Kanto counted it as a victory.

“I’m not crying for him, he can go fuck himself for all I—”

“Had to offer.” Kanto smiled, considering putting a hit on Tenzin anyway. One didn’t rule the criminal underground for decades without forming some strong friendships with some seriously dangerous people. He gave up on the idea quickly, but still… It was nice to think about. “How big is the damage? Was anyone hurt?”

He made sure not to phrase it like _How much damage did you do? Did you hurt anyone?_

“No one’s hurt. But the island… I tried to split it in half. I got pretty far into it, but then I gave up and started sinking it into the ocean…”

“Did you do it?” He was sure his earthbending couldn’t do _that_ even in his prime.

“Not completely… I started thinking clearly at one point and just bolted out of there.” She wiped tears from her face. “Spirits, Tenzin may be right to go with that woman, she would never do something like this. There’s something wrong with me…”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Lin. You were provoked, and you have two very impulsive parents. You know what I used to do, and when I broke up with your mother, she kicked the shit out of me and created an earthquake that could be felt throughout the entire city… All things considered, it’s a miracle Tenzin is still alive.”

She said nothing to that for a few moments. Then Kanto felt her lean her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Dad.” And now he was about to cry, but she continued quickly, like she wanted to pretend she’d never said it. “But if I lose this job…”

“You won’t. Trust me, I’m a lifelong impulsive idiot, I know when something’s gone too far, and this hasn’t.” He could feel by her breaths that she hadn’t stopped crying. “It’s alright, Lin. It’s okay. I just know everything will work out.”

They sat like that for hours, and no one came to arrest her. A young officer did eventually ask through the door why she hadn’t shown up for work.

**oooooooooo**

**_45 years after Lin’s born_ **

“Morning, Chief,” Kanto greeted his daughter as he was taking his usually spot on the floor.

Lin acknowledged him with a nod before sitting down on the floor as well, leaving only the metal bars between them.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask.” A cough interrupted him. “Who’s been leading my triad these days? I mean, I took out the biggest players, so it was up for grabs…” He trailed off into silence trying to hold back another cough.

She said nothing, just stared forward emotionlessly.

“The doctors told you, didn’t they?” he guessed.

“I had to ask once I heard them joking around about your cell being empty _finally_. I should fire those idiots…” She rubbed her face. “How long do you have?”

“A few months, they say.” He had to cough then, and swiftly tried to hide the blood on his sleeve after.

“I’ll arrange for you to be brought to Katara at the South Pole. She’s the best, she—” He knew she’d say that.

“They said healers wouldn’t make a difference… Plus, Katara kind of hates me.”

“You know her?”

“We had one short, but very unpleasant conversation.”

Lin huffed.

“Then I’ll find someone else there… Someone trained by Katara.”

“Lin, that would expose you. Or at least be suspicious… I don’t want that.” He knew it was the response a decent man would give. A man like he was trying to be. A good father. A selfless father. Surprisingly, in this case he found himself actually meaning the words, not just knowing he should say them.

“So what? You expect me to just come here every week and watch you die slowly?!” Her face was red in frustration.

Kanto had allowed himself, in a moment of selfishness, hope that she might be saddened by the news. Hope that someone, anyone really, might feel sad learning of his now fast-approaching death. Toph was a world away and would probably shrug at the news, heartless as it sounded. He should be grateful Lin was so anxious to help, to try and make it better.

He realized they’d both been silent for a long while. Lin was still fuming, probably internally cursing him in every way she knew how.

“I can’t force you to keep coming.”

“Of course, I’ll keep coming.”

A good man would’ve told her he didn’t want her to. Kanto couldn’t.

She’d be okay, she’d lost father figures before, more important ones than him. The Avatar, that Sokka guy…

“You know, I can’t decide what’s worse…” He begun with a bitter smile. “Realizing that the worst ones really do die last, or that you’re one of them?”

“Don’t say that.” She looked like she’s about to follow that up with something, but ultimately didn’t.

**oooooooooo**

Lin knew the day was coming, but much like it always was with these things, she didn’t think it’d be today. Making her way through the prison didn’t feel any different. Neither did climbing the steps to the special protection floor. Nothing to prepare her for finding Kanto’s cell empty.

A young guard ran in after her immediately to explain. She barely heard a word out of his mouth. She knew what it meant. The disease had finally done it. Her father was dead.

“Leave me,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

“Order.”

The young man shrugged and left the room.

Despite being alone, Lin still fought her reaction as hard as she could. She squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed every muscle in her face trying to keep the tears in. They escaped. She couldn’t hold them back any more than she could’ve kept Kanto alive.

So she cried. On his spot on the floor. Alone.

Or so she thought…

Miles and miles from Republic City, deep in the swamp, Toph Beifong sat on a giant tree root. The spiritual connection to her eldest daughter had called to her, then showed her what had changed. Even though nobody could see it, or maybe because of it, Toph shed a few tears for Kanto alongside their daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sort of struggled with this chapter. The idea was, that when Lin is older, in her 30s, she kind of stopped viewing the world so black and white, so the idea of sort of forgiving Kanto or just talking to him didn’t seem so horribly wrong.
> 
> That said, it was had to not make her sound like a teenager, because don’t we all go back to teenagers when we’re having family drama with the parents? I did my best.
> 
> Anyway, Toph’s swamp spiritual connection that allows her to view everything happening anywhere in the world isn’t that well explained in LoK, but I couldn’t resist making everything sadder with it.
> 
> Since this is the last chapter of the Kanto storyline, thanks to everyone for following this. I had a lot of fun and a lot of feelings writing both of the stories. I appreciate everyone who took the time to like or review and encourage you to comment now if you haven’t already.


End file.
